Email - love it or loathe it?

That is one of those questions they ask in the profile section of the Business Pages in the Isle of Man Examiner - you know the one that people volunteer themselves for to promote their businesses and make references to how they like to be at their desk by 7.30 (when actually they are never there before 9).

Well I love email and I think it has so many advantages over other forms of communication in that each person can respond at the time that suits them. The only problem is that sometimes we send an email to someone thinking it is the only one that person will send and have unrealistic expectations about the speed of response.

I manage my email at home (and I receive tons because have my fingers in lots of pies) by getting any easy ones out of the way first or then anything that is just interesting.

I then try and find time for the emails that require research or a more measured response. The problem is that then I receive more emails, do the same thing again and sometimes I take ages to reply to some people. Sorry guys.

But I am applying the same principle to Michael George's question about why did I not go back to walking. He says that I am a club standard runner but was an international standard walker. The answer is really easy and in the question.

My body couldn't handle to the training I subjected it to in the early 80s (more about that another day). Having achieved about as much as I could have done as a race walker other than my under performance at 50km, I had no inclination to walk around considerably slower than I had in the past because I was training 30 miles a week rather than the 100 miles that took me to my best performances.

As a runner, however, I still have scope for improvement. On a good day I still believe I can improve my marathon time of 2.43 and so it is much better challenge to try to do so. I would also like to think I would have been considerably faster at running had I been training for long distance running events at my peak. I ran 70.59 for a half marathon off virtually no running training in November 1981, which is good club level stuff. I was 7th best over 50 in the UK at the marathon in 2006 so I would like to think I was nudging towards national standard for my age though Michael.

I'll get back to the harder questions another day. After clearing out some of my emails.