Lux

Long day up at 5am followed by all day meetings with the Lux team and then dinner at Brasserie Schuman at the Theater.  Most importantly I had preplanned to meet Alain, Pol and Vincent pre dinner for a run at Bambesch forest where we usually run.

Great company as always and Alain is an inspiration in that he has excelled in every walk of life - in this order:

1. Running (59 and still running most days)
2. Leading tax lawyer in Lux
3. Family

Technically we are a client of his but I have never seen it that way and when he offers dinner I say scrap that just take me for a run!

Great to catch up with Pol too who is on fire after taking out the Lux 10k champs again as well as the European championships for the minnows 2 weeks back. He is also going to the European team games in 2 weeks where he will run the 5k. Throughout our run I was trying to convince him to go for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics when he will be 32. He has pedigree: sub 30 for 10k and a 66 half off little endurance training.

He reckons he will need a 2.17 marathon to qualify for Tokyo. Frustrating for him the Lux Olympic association have imposed a 2 minute quicker time than the Olympic qualifying time of 2.19. A long story but is a by-product of all the recent doping scandals. On that he shared a great story on Dieter Baumann who won gold in Barcelona who his coach used to compete against and accused of being clouded in smoke.

The run itself was largely made up of Vincent asking Pol endless questions about his training. My closing comment to Pol was that I wished he had 5% of my ego - he is as grounded and modest as they come and despite my cries he is still undecided. I won't stop nagging him.

Notwithstanding the good company I felt terrible today. In fact would go as far as say it was my worst run this year. I felt flat as a pancake and not helped by another early start. I am basically soft. 13ks in 4.40s, I doubt Pol has ran that slowly in years. I feel bad too as Pol has recently been handed our account which means he is getting slammed!

Nice dinner to finish off. Pol left (all 60kgs of him), Vincent right:

* Across the road from the office I spotted this graffiti portrait (48hrs new) of Tommy 'Mister Tom' Simpson. For anyone who has not read his biography 'put me back on my bike' it's well worth a read.