Fifty-five not out by Nick

• To ebay or not to ebay?

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  May2320127:15 p.m.

  Training today - back trotting around Hindhead Common on a warm sunny day.  For the first time this year I was able to take my shirt off and thus treat the locals to the sight of my skinny white torso!  I've worked up to running for about an hour at a fairly gentle pace, which means I should be able to cope with Sunday's BUPA 10k in London without too many problems.

  I have been enjoying watching the torch relay making its' way around the country.  The BBC are following it on their website and they are offering a live feed, so you could watch it all day if you wanted.  (Click here)  I take the occasional look and am always pleased to see huge crowds of cheering people wherever the torch passes through.  On Monday morning the flame will be in Aberystwth first thing and I am hoping to see Bridget James, formerly Parkinson, (some of you might remember her) running with the torch.  I expect her daughter Elain will be there too.

  One of the pleasures of watching the relay so far is that they have been passing through areas which are familiar to me, where I might have family or friends.  On Saturday afternoon they passed through Bodmin, where some of my Cornish family live.  Here they are going through the top end of the town.

  

  On Sunday they reached Exeter, where I lived for many years, and the flame went straight past the house where I used to live.  I have run hundreds of times over the bridge in the picture below.

  

  Yesterday they were in Somerset, where I lived for a few years back in the eighties, passing through places that I remember well, such as Wells and Glastonbury.  The relay here featured several people who had strong links to the county such as Jonathon Edwards, Marcus Trescothick and ... errr ... Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas  (I used to know his cousin from Yorkshire - Will.I.Eckaslike!)

  

  The relay has been a huge success so far.  The only point of contention has been the appearance on Ebay of a number of Olympic Torches.  As I understand it all torchbearers are given the option of buying their torch at a price of around £200, which is apparently well below cost price.  The torches advertised on Ebay have been fetching extraordinary sums, over a hundred and fifty thousand in one case.  I suspect however that this might be a case of bogus bidders jumping on the bandwagon and the sellers won't be getting anything like this amount.  There are over a hundred torch bearers per day, so if they all put their torches up for sale, it would quickly flood the market and they would be lucky even to get back the £200 they had spent.  I don't think that will happen!

  

  When I first heard about this, my first thought was "How dare they???"  If I had the honour of carrying the torch, I would like to keep it as a treasured momento of an amazing day, not flog it to the highest bidder.

  But on second thoughts, I realised I didn't mind too much.  Those people who are selling their torches generally seem to be doing so to raise money for their charities or good causes - perhaps the reason why they were nominated as torch bearers in the first place.  If Bridget in Aberystwyth chose to sell her torch to raise funds for the charity she supports, I would not complain at all.  And if it should be the case that people are selling their torches to fund a family holiday or a flat screen telly, well at least the torches will eventually end up in the hands of people who will appreciate them.

  The torch relay is passing within ten miles of virtually everybody in the country, so I hope you will get the chance to enjoy the event for yourselves.  I look forward to it arriving in this neck of the woods in July.

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  Comments (6)

  • Firefly123 'It passes through Ealing at the end of July, so I'll hopefully see it then. Good luck in the run on Sunday, Nick. ' added 23rd May 2012

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  • SeanG 'Running a marathon on the day it passes through my area. Quite ironic really. Didn't realise until the start of the week that each torch bearer had their own torch. Thought that a single torch would get passed from person to person. Yes, I think some of the "famous" torch bearers have been rather questionable. Good luck on Sunday.' added 24th May 2012

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  • Scardoc 'I wonder if H&S have prevented there being one torch only. Imagine how quickly you could spread a virus around the country if one torchbearer has a good sneeze right before receiving it! ' added 24th May 2012

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  • Dungey 'I watched it come through here a couple of days ago, so exciting. I had similar thoughts to you on the sale of a torch. A local lady was on the radio saying she was selling hers for her charity, although she didnt believe the final bid was genuine' added 24th May 2012

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  • Johnf 'July 4th in Ipswich I believe with the final stop at one of the big parks in the town with an evening event, so definitely will be going. I think with the number of torches available to prices achieved now will be quite low but keep it till the next time the Olympics are here and then they will be valuable.' added 24th May 2012

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  • HellenH 'Have a good runon Sunday Nick. I think the torch is down this neck of the woods on Friday - I'm in work unfortunately so maybe I'll check out the live streaming before I go in! :)' added 24th May 2012

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