Mon 25 March 2002

And so, the fabled three-week taper begins. Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here. The encouraging daily emails I get from the Hal Higdon training programme say back-slapping things like "Don't worry! The hard work is now behind you!" Well perhaps it is: apart from that last tiny detail like the 26.2 miles of the marathon in 20 days time...

Yesterday was a big day: the longest long-run of the entire training programme. Not only was it a red-letter day but the strong Spring sunshine made it a red-neck and red-shoulders day, and the distance ensured it was a red-thigh day. It was also a pretty red-face day too (let me know when you tire of this weedy joke) as I only just avoided finishing last.

It was certainly a more serious field than the two half marathons of the past two weeks. At Fleet and at Reading in particular, there was a good proportion of fun-runners and charity-racers which ensured that I had plentiful company at the back of the field. Perhaps the 20 miles of Worthing was just too intimidating for most casual runners, or perhaps it was a little too out-of-the-way for many. Whatever the reason, there were very few plodders like me to be found.

Worthing is a pleasant-enough town down on the south coast. It's always had a somewhat moribund public image though recently it seems to have begun to wake up from its long sleep, and there's even talk of of it 'doing a Brighton' and becoming a breakaway fragment of the Home Counties' IT industry. When I originally booked a place I had visions of running majestically across the golden sands, the sea breeze in my hair. Or at least the chance to pound along the front, hearing the waves crashing against the rocks. But I never even found out if Worthing has any rocks or golden sands. Certainly there wasn't too much sea to be seen from the course.

I was accompanied this time by M and the in-laws, who live only 25 or so miles away. They dropped me off in good time though I still managed to start in last place as, right up till that last moment, I was trying in vain to have a final pee in a nearby field. Urinating in front of a thousand people, especially when they are running away up the road without you, calls for a particular kind of single-mindedness. Whatever quality it requires, I don't seen to have it. Eventually I had to give up and tear after them.

This was a hard slog of a race. It was warm and sunny, and the pace was brisk. Too brisk, which was probably half the trouble. My aim was to complete the 20 in 4 hours: an average of 12 minutes a mile. The first 6 miles, however, were: 09:15, 09:20, 10:22, 10:16, 10:23 and 09:21. Quite bizarre, and unwise.

The course was a 5 mile circuit, repeated four times. The first was perhaps the hardest - and certainly the fastest. At the end of it, I began to slow down quite markedly. After around 7 miles I was caught up and lapped by the leader. Just shot past me like someone running 50 yards for a bus. There was a bit of a gap, then came a steady stream of sickeningly fresh-looking, sturdy athletic types.

Halfway through the second lap I got chatting to another runner who, like me, preferred the civilised climate at the rear of the field over the undignified frenzy of the front. I warmed to him when he revealed that he lived in Shepherds Bush, my spiritual home, and the real home of my football team. Tragically, he then confessed to being a Fulham fan. Oh. There followed a slightly awkward silence for a moment until we realised that we must both hold Chelsea in equal disdain, and this got the conversation going again. We chatted for a few minutes before I pressed on again. But our shared lack of speed and energy kept dragging us into alignment, and we chatted on and off for much of the last half of the race.

One of the several low points of the race was the end of the third lap. As I passed through, onto the fourth circuit, most people in front of me had already done this, and were now completing their race, branching off instead towards the finish. Bitterly, I wondered how many back markers like me had taken the opportunity to pretend that they'd done four when really they'd managed only three? Perhaps none, but I was struck by how deserted the race suddenly became after that point.

For the whole of the final lap there were two teenage girls about 200 metres in front of us. Eventually they began to tire and I decided I had to overtake them - which I finally did, about 100 metres from the finish. I felt a bit guilty about having left Gordon, the other guy behind, but well, he was a Fulham fan after all. I diluted my guilt with a cup of orange squash that I had waiting for him as he eventually crossed the line a few minutes later. We chatted for a moment or two before I went off to meet up with M again. If he reads this, good luck for the marathon, and thanks for the company.

Final time was 3 hours 57 minutes, just within my target. All in all a strange, low-key occasion with very few spectators and surprisingly little excitement despite a thousand people either haring or hobbling round the town 4 times. Perhaps that says it all about the endearingly English languor of Worthing.

Oh yeah, and my toenail finally fell off...

Tues 26 March 2002

Five miles this evening after work, while the sun was still out. Splendid weather, though the run was only reasonable. It must have been last night's fish and chips weighing me down. Yes I know, I know, but it's my only digression and it happens only every 2 or 3 weeks. Yes but... aw shaddup.

We're moving on Thursday. This current house in... wherever it is - Bristol? South Gloucestireshire? Avon? I never did work out where we live - will be kept on for a month but officially we'll be residents of Berkshire after tomorrow. Which means that tomorrow's run might be the last one I do in this neck of the woods. From here on it will be a whole new running landscape. Kind of exciting.

Wed 27 March 2002

As alluded to yesterday, tomorrow we move away from... wherever it is we live, so today's lunchtime 8 miler had special resonance.

It always comes as a surprise to me that running is so hard. I spend most of my time thinking that running is easy and pleasant, like taking a stroll, but then every time I actually do it I remember that it's actually a bit of a struggle. After I get back home and have a bath and put on some clean clothes I feel so good and so relieved that I instantly forget that it was difficult and uncomfortable. The post-run me dupes the yet-to-run me. If it didn't, I'd never get out of the door.

Eight miles at lunchtime has an extra toughness as I'm more conscious of the time pressure. I should be at home, doing moderately useful things to ASP code, but instead I'm stealing an extra 22 minutes to squash in another 2 miles. The weather has been glorious this week: real, strong sunshine - the pukka stuff, not that watery wintry version. Despite longing for it for months, it's slightly deflating to find that actually it's not ideal for running in. Add to that my failure to 'prehydrate', and that's why it was a bit of a struggle.

And so for the last time I pound past Tesco and B & Q and all those long, featureless roads through the housing estates. I've never seen it so sunny and fresh but sorry, they left it too late. Along the High Road, past the chippie and the unvisited pubs; past the barber shop and the string of six estate agents in a line; past the unused railway station and the small trading estate and that sign for the weekly Sunday car boot sale that we never did visit, despite promising to every Friday evening when planning our weekend activities. Past the neat little football ground of Yate FC which I regret I never made it to. Then round up North Lane for the final time and into Engine Common Lane where I've run a hundred times since I started this training programme in early December. I've seen this quiet, rustic lane in all its guises: pitch black, twilit, moonlit, sunny and warm, dark and teeming with rain, black and freezing, light and icy. You name it, I've done it. Six in the morning, ten at night. Christmas Day, New Year's Day, the first day of spring. Crusted with frost, ankle-deep in a river of rain and mud, and today - filled with sunshine and studded with a thousand daffodils.

I enjoyed my sentimental moment, but it's time to move on. What's that verse from Lord Of The Rings?

          The road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began.
          Now far ahead my road has gone and I must follow if I can,
          Pursuing it with eager feet until it joins some larger way,
          Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then?
          I cannot say.

Farewell, wherever it was we lived.

Good Friday: 29 March 2002

Well, the Engine Common Lane retrospective and the wistful burst of Tolkien turned out to be a little premature. This morning's 4 mile run took place back near "the door where it began", and indeed included a whopping double helping of Engine Common Lane. I couldn't help blushing a bit as it consumed me yet again.

No, nothing went wrong with the move. Actually it wasn't really a move at all. Yesterday we completed the purchase of the new Runningcommentary Towers, and went over to collect the keys and to start hoovering up the dead flies and scraping other people's lives from the walls. Our furniture is still in storage elsewhere, but we had intended on stopping overnight there. Except that we forgot to take any bedding with us. As a veteran of many a budget trip round the Indian Subcontinent I am well accustomed to concrete beds but my wife is not similarly seasoned, and quite reasonably suggested that we postpone the nocturnal part of our move for another night.

So we returned to somewhere near Chipping Sodbury last night, where this morning I did my 4 miler. Which should be dead easy by now but still isn't. Again, a very warm and sunny morning: the weather's been wildly summery this last week. It was wonderful to be out and about in it, but running is perhaps being a little over-appreciative, I decided. At least it would be normally, but of course I'm following a strict marathon training programme so I've no choice.

This morning we returned to Berkshire (about 70 miles) to continue the chores only to realise that we had once again forgotten to take any bedding or cushions along, and so once again we find ourselves back in the West. Tomorrow however I have no run, so there's a chance that I really have run my last Engine Common Lane.

But I now know better than to pen another premature obituary...

PS I'm celebrating the sort-of house move at the moment by enjoying a few scoops of Sainsbury's Easter Champagne bargain Charles De Muret NV. I'm extremely glad I opened the bottle and sampled a glass or two before reading the irritating Jane MacQuitty's review in today's Times. She notes: "Appalling beery smell on opening, followed by a scent of mothballs. Odd, mothball-charged palate with an acidic, tinny, camphor-scented finish. The worst [of the cheap supermarket Champagnes]".

Oh Jane! Poor Sainsbury's! The wine in my bottle is actually pretty good. No evidence of camphor or mothballs, and what she describes as acidic and tinny is, to me, the pretty damn drinkable, crisp, appliness of youthful Champagne. This isn't top class Champagne but for Ł6.99 (reduced from Ł14.99) it's a hell of a bargain, and everyone reading this should go and buy a bottle or two and stick it in their fridge along with a label reading: Not to be opened until the evening of April 14th.

You'll be glad you did.

Easter Sunday: 31 March 2002

Did someone say something about running a marathon?

The first phase of the house-move seems to be grinding past with reasonable success. The 3rd day of cleaning and scratching have at last taken us beyond the disgusting end of the chores: the bathrooms and kitchen. Now we are embracing the more genteel tasks of carpet cleaning and window-washing and... but just how interested are you in the minutiae of someone else's domestic sanitation? Let's move on.

This morning I sampled my first Berkshire run. How nice to be somewhere else. The cool, rainswept jaunt took me along the picturesque Kennet and Avon canal for around 6 miles, to a spot past Aldermaston Wharf, where I turned and ran back. Towards the end I tired and ended up walking the last mile or so, but a run of between 10 and 11 miles was fine.

Being a canal, the route was pleasingly flat though the scenery and surroundings still managed to be spectacular in a kind of serene and very English way. At one of the several points where the canal met the River Kennet, a stately heron stood on the weir, waiting for lunch to leap past. There were cheerful greetings from the occasional barge gliding by, and from other users of the towpath. Fewer walkers and cyclists and runners than expected: a good sign.

Here was a different world from the one I've been accustomed to. But more than a physical difference: the social rules seemed at odds with the real world beyond. It was like an idealised version of reality where almost everyone is in leisure mode, relaxed and full of innocent, childlike smiles and salutations. It was a sort of primary-coloured XP-land, full of happy-clappy smily people. Perhaps there is a canal-side weed that exudes some kind of mild LSD-like sensation to all who pass.

Got back full of leg ache: a consequence I suspect of running on the bumpy towpath instead of the usual tarmac roads.

Tomorrow is a rest day. Off to the match as usual. Meeting up with a mate I've not seen for a while so some beer might have to spilt. But what the hell, it's a holiday...

Next week >