Tel Aviv, Israel

Wednesday 30^th January

It rained. All day. I stayed in bed until gone noon. I received some sad news also. A friend I had done Tough Guy with last January (a charity event that involves lots of pain on your part) had died in a tragic climbing accident. I couldn’t believe it. He was at Uni in Oxford. He was a fantastic young guy. Everyone he met during tough guy was enthused by his warmth, passion, and zest for life. And he was cut down in his prime. I didn’t know him as well as I would have liked to. And although I had not met them, my thoughts were with his family that evening. I had such fond memories of Saturday morning runs in neoprene in Shotover: press-ups on logs and pull-ups on overhanging trees. Sprints through Wytham Woods and flooded Port Meadow, and I’ll never forget the time when you ate a cooked breakfast before riding three miles to meet us. Good memories. Rest in Peace, Ivan.

To An Athlete Dying Young

The time you won your town the race

We chaired you through the market-place;

Man and boy stood cheering by,

And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,

Shoulder-high we bring you home,

And set you at your threshold down,

Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away

From fields where glory does not stay,

And early though the laurel grows

It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut

Cannot see the record cut,

And silence sounds no worse than cheers

After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout

Of lads that wore their honours out,

Runners whom renown outran

And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,

The fleet foot on the sill of shade,

And hold to the low lintel up

The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head

Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,

And find unwithered on its curls

The garland briefer than a girl's.

A.E Houseman.