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The Lance Armstrong Story - Stop at Nothing
(29 posts)-
Posted 7 years ago #
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On NOW.
Posted 7 years ago # -
if anybody missed this you can watch on utube or itplayer i think
Posted 7 years ago # -
Watched The Programme on iPlayer last night. I guess everyone has seen it. Made me reflect on many things, including the last Tour I attended - Armstrong's last win in 2005 where I saw them coming up the Col des Écharmeaux at about the same speed as I'd go down it.
But for the virus today would be the Seven Hills of Edinburgh race - the only one I've run multiple times in a serious effort to get a time. I did a whole winter's training one year with a weighted rucksack but it never once occurred to me to dope. I just had far too much respect for the event and being able to look everyone else in the eye afterwards.
The worst thing I did was the year when my training went wrong and I wasn't race fit so I entered the Challenge rather than the Race. I was leading and I realised the guy behind me didn't know the route so I dropped back at Pollock Halls and let him run off into Dumbiedykes never to be seen again. Not very nice but picking a route is a valid part of the event.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@IWRATS not doping cancels out killing the guy who did not know the route, No Penance
Posted 3 years ago # -
How long does one have to not dope for to cancel out one murder?
Posted 3 years ago # -
@Frenchy. Another Ecumenical matter I am afraid
Posted 3 years ago # -
The guy's name was very distinctive and I Google sometimes to see if he ever turned up. No luck yet.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Not very nice but picking a route is a valid part of the event.
As is, I suspect, the ability to recognise a hill.Posted 3 years ago # -
@stiltskin
To be fair the competitors are in extremis in Newington. Hallucinations, the lot.
I fell coming off Arthur's Seat one year, tumbling down the turf. As I picked myself up a tourist asked me the time and I entered a paranoid fugue state where this person was trying to subtly tell me I'd blacked out for hours and the race had packed up. I was convinced this was true until I reached the finish line.
Posted 3 years ago # -
As is, I suspect, the ability to recognise a hill.
I'd turn round and run the other way too if I saw Arthur's Seat in front of me after running 12 miles.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I've only done the 7 hills once - I ran a different route down Arthur's Seat than I had planned. I just didn't realise, even though I have ran up, down, round and over that hill hundreds of times. It also took me a couple of minutes to find the finish line on Calton Hill.
It's rather tough going.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I always ran with a tenner in my shoe so I could get back to the start as long as I could still speak. Some pretty good runners have blown up on that event. I pulled a whitey training one year.
But I don't think many entrants dope and if anyone did nobody would give them the time of day ever again.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Mr fimm ran the 10 Tumps* of Edinburgh the other weekend - we met someone we know who said it would have been the 7 Hills Race that weekend which we didn't know.
I've only done the 7 Hills once - it was good fun, especially the scramble up onto Arthur's Seat. Definitely worth knowing the route before you start, though.*Tump = 30 metre prominence - i.e. a hill which climbs at least 30 metres above its col. The Edinburgh ones are the 7 Hills plus Wester Craiglockhart, Salisbury Crags and Dunsapie. I'd never been up the latter two before. I ran home after we'd done the Holyrood Park hills.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@fimm
It is a matter of some consternation to me that Craigmillar Hill is treated with quite such disdain. It might as well be invisible, despite having an actual medieval castle on top of it.
Posted 3 years ago # -
As far as I can tell, Craigmillar Hill has a prominence of ~24m.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Semi-tump thenor STump
Posted 3 years ago # -
The key col for Craigmillar Hill is Old Dalkeith Road, just between Kingston Avenue and Craigmillar Castle Road.
Which raises the important question:
Can we redesign Old Dalkeith Road in such a way that cycling on it becomes safe, AND means that Craigmillar Hill attains its rightful place on the list of tumps?
Posted 3 years ago # -
I was recently in correspondence with a local narcissist. If they had added 'I have a prominence of over a kilometre' to one of their missives it would have been no less mad.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@Frenchy
Tunnel or stilts? Spit it out man!
Posted 3 years ago # -
Think we need to lower the road by 6m*, then build an elevated cycleway over it so that the cycleway is flat. Would need to be done in such a way that whoever determines the altitude measures to the road, rather than the cycleway, which precludes a simple tunnel.
*Less if we deposit the extracted soil on top of Craigmillar Hill.
Posted 3 years ago # -
No soil on the hill, otherwise please proceed to execution.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I'll submit it in the next round of consultations on the KB-BioQuarter route. Expect delivery in 2034.
Posted 3 years ago # -
IWRATS, you fool, don't want your favourite hill on a List. People will come and climb it then... keep your solitude.
;-)Posted 3 years ago # -
@fimm
An excellent pair of points well made.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Discussion of Tumps makes me laugh - made me recall an excellent article recently on Mountaineering in East Anglia. Highlights included
"the classic traverse of Strumpshaw Railway Bridge",
"the first ascent of the Haisborough Sands",
"the majestic Scroby Sands, the main ridge of which can be seen abutting the skyline at most low tides. The traverse of this ridge has been recognised as the last big challenge for East Anglian mountaineering. Several attempts have been made on this ridge, both with and without oxygen"
Posted 3 years ago # -
Craigmillar Hill summit is over 90m and the Niddrie Burn at the hospital is under 50m but it's not a TuMP?
Clear discrimination.
Posted 3 years ago # -
IWRATS I get my obscure hill list information from here: https://www.hill-bagging.co.uk/index.php
where they say
A Tump is a hill in Scotland, England, Wales, the Isle of Man or Channel Islands which is separated from adjacent tops by a height difference of at least 30 metres on all sides.
You are welcome to go and discuss matters with them, but I think they are unashamedly already very geeky on such things...
Posted 3 years ago # -
Ah, on all sides. I see, I see. I shall call the dogs off.
Posted 3 years ago #
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