LEICESTERSHIRE NOTES
by John Ghent
"Back To Basics Marathon Challenge"
It's been two months or so since I brought the Backyard Marathon Challenge to an end. The impending move to the 100 foot garden that I had been dreaming of really meant that I wouldn't be doing the Backyard Challenge justice any longer. The house move and my newborn daughter have also really brought it home that there are other things in a 32 year old mans life other than racing pigeons so the last 8 weeks have really seen minimum involvement with the birds as we strive to get the house prepared for Christmas and in readiness for young Abbie taking to all fours and crawling all over the place.
Without the massive help from Gaz Marsh the birds would still be stuck in a garden shed, way too many to be in one shed I might add, and being seen once a day in the dark to make sure enough food and water is available! However with assistance from Gaz and a few weekends of hard graft there is finally a section ready which the birds are now in, on a light dressing of Easi-Bed to combat the damp in the air and to stop the droppings all sticking to the floor, allowing the weekly clean to be a little easier than it has been since October.
So, where do I go from here? Well to be honest the ending of the Backyard Challenge left a void in my life! For 3 years and more I had been on this quest, developing my team of odds and sods in an effort to prepare them for a shot at Barcelona International. Numerous changes to the loft set up, too many pigeons in the loft on more than one occasion, and many different systems, tactics, training methods and feeding methods had been utilised in this relatively short time in the pigeon world. My patience had been tested on a number of occasions and actually I had a couple of decent, little results in the BICC which I was quite proud of, nothing to shout home about but I knew what the birds had accomplished with the methods I had put in place for them. This was now all finished. Relegated to memories past, in a yard where there was no longer a pigeon loft stood, it was like it had never happened. The new house is everything I could have wished for, for the birds and for us. The loft faces south, lots of space for the kids and the rabbits, nice extension to give the property a decent kitchen diner, something often lacking in 1930's semis, and a play room which is a vital addition with one permanent infant resident and my two older girls who spend a good 30-40% of their time here as well. But, I sit here now in front of the Christmas tree and the thoughts that used to occupy my mind over the last few winters are gone. Do I even know which birds are in the garden? What are the targets? What shall I do in 2016? Which system shall I use? All these questions I normally would have been able to give concrete answers to but not so much recently, until now.
I am old before my time, an old romantic who yearns for the bygone days of distance racing. The packed out Public Houses around the cities of the UK, Federation Championship basketing night at the Working Men's Club, Toulet clocks being pulled up in one simultaneous clunk, you get the picture. Anyway, despite my head telling me otherwise, I enjoy keeping pigeons the traditional way (or old fashioned way depending on which way you look at it), I can't help it, it's the way I am. My "best performances", if you can call them that, have been when preparing just 3-5 birds for a particular race. I enjoy getting to know them, playing around with them with the odd peanut here and there, watching them nest and if they aren't 100% right then I prefer not to send. I have tried some various other methods but I just don't like them. Old and young run together as one colony, picking out the birds for each race and getting them ready over the course of a few weeks, that's what I like! Now, couple that with my wife being on maternity leave but not planning on returning to work, so money being a little tight, and the small team basic methods used by distance men the country over for the last 50-60 years in the marathon events appeals quite considerably!
Therefore, the "Back to Basics Marathon Challenge" starts here! Simple feeding, natural racing, no fancy lofts with heat panels or self cleaning boxes, no darkness system, no winter bred babies, lots of love and attention and a small team of racing pigeons. That'll do me, like it has done for many fanciers before me. The likelihood of competing at anything lower than 500 miles is slim and quite frankly doesn't really interest me anyway so we shall track the progress to the 500/600/700 mile race points over the coming months and years and see where these basics methods can take us in that time. I can do this safe in the knowledge that unless Em kicks me out, there is no imminent house move around the corner and it gives me something to focus on between September and April each year as breeding will not be starting too early at all.
You may not hear too much from me in this current off season, although my usual Blackpool round up will no doubt be written, as to be honest there is not a lot happening! Once the lofts are sorted and the stock are settled then the real fun starts, breeding the first generation of extreme distance pigeons to tackle my target races, these will be revealed in due course once I have finalised the plans for the 2016 race season and confirmed which birds have been broken to the new location successfully!
One thing I would like to do this time around is get other people involved. Let's track our progress as a group. Consequently I am asking you to get in touch if you, or anybody you know, are flying "Back to Basics" at the distance and wants to share in the joys of the chase and torture that we endure as Marathon Men. It will be interesting to compare experiences and see how far we can get as a collective. So for now that's it, the "Back to Basics Marathon Challenge" has arrived and I can't wait to really get stuck in.
"Nothing is simpler than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great."
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Thanks for reading, look forward to hearing from you.
John Ghent
73, Braunstone Close
Leicester
LE3 2GW
