Wednesday 7 May 2008

Just Say No! To Gambling that is.

Hi Everybody,

Mmm. Due to a combination involving work, child and motivation, training has been sparse to say the least since my 50k.

The slight feeling that things are getting away from me has been exacerbated by the lovely weather. Oh and when I was marshalling at Kaneen's Garage Union Mills on Monday night during the Peel to Douglas race, a certain Robbie Callister turned up for a chat looking fit and tanned following his annual sojourn to Spain.

Since my 50k, I have done only two very light training sessions and played one game of football, so I am starting to panic about whether I'll be fully conditioned. As I alluded to earlier, the hotel is so busy that I'm struggling to escape and that hasn't been helping in that some of our team are taking holidays at the moment.

Many of the really big names including previous winners Peter Kaneen and Sue Biggart have finally put pen to paper or finger to keypad or whatever it is these days that you have to do. The excitement is building and the entry is growing!

My unique gambling fortunes came to the fore again this week. In an earlier post, you'll have probably have heard that I bet on the joint winner in the Sarah Killey Memorial work but ended up losing twice my stake i.e. two bottles of wine. This time a fellow Parish Walker bet me that there were only going to be about 850 entries this time around. I think I said 1100ish and he generously gave me any number down to a thousand but then texted last week to ask me to call the bet off, as it seemed he may have been wrong.

Of course, at such a polite request, how could I refuse? I don't think I'm quite getting the hang of this wagering business.

Oh well. I'll try to do some more walking today.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ok, I'll have some of this ;-) I bet you this, a) Parish Walk day it rains at some point during YOUR race b) You don't win the Parish Walk (I have to say this otherwise there is no bet, I can't see you betting negatively against yourself!)Each part of the bet is for a bottle of wine, I reckon each bet is about same in odds (I would say that it is my bet!). Finally, as a bonus, if either of us is right, ie you win and stay dry we double it up to Mike wins 4 bottles! If you don't win and get wet you will then have to cough 4 bottles of wine up!!!Fancy a bet? If you say yes here I will contact someone you know and let them know who I am so the bet would be "real". What do you think?

Anonymous said...

Now as you've probably realised reading my blogs, I'm no genius but even I stop short of falling for those odds.

Mr Anonymous, you must be either a bookmaker or you think I have massive self/over confidence and even a deluded Manx hotelier trying to drum up business like me wouldn't wager evens on the Isle of Man weather holding out for a whole day! - Michael