2008 - a bit late

[marathondan]

And so to my final racing hurrah before priorities turn to the expanding family next month. This one was warm 'n' hilly – the organizers seem to be vying with Marlow, which I ran a couple of years ago, for the toughest half marathon in Bucks. (Witness the pre-race announcer: "Anyone here from Marlow? Go home and run your own half marathon!") (I must also mention the other classic: "Hello to XXX, who’s run this race every year since it started. There’s a special message for you from the club chairman: When are you going to do some marshalling?")

I walked the killer hill shown in the profile above – it felt a bit naughty so early in the race, but it was the right decision – it couldn’t have cost more me than a couple of minutes, and instead of a hard half marathon, I was facing a 12-miler on top of a nice warmup.

On-line carb loading was meant to be courtesy of a pocketful of dried figs, but at the first of the generous (but necessary) six water stops these proved completely unpalatable, and were chucked into the nearest hedgerow. I should have bought the "extra juicy" variety (or maybe just soaked them in water).

Timing – about which I’m slightly obsessive – wasn’t helped by forgetting to start my watch on the line, but I managed to hold 8 minute miles – allowing for The Hill - for the first five miles or so. Then the times began to gradually slide, my "very happy" stretch target of 1:45 disappearing as fast as the competent club runners around me who were beginning to show their class.

I took the downhill at mile 6 at a gentle trot; the joints took a bit of a pounding (this was on road, of course) but it wasn’t as debilitating as I had feared. But I knew that I’d just completed the easiest mile of the race, and from then on it was a struggle.

So the mental games started, to try and get me to the finish. I concentrated on just getting to 10 miles, and then mentally treated the final 3.1 as a separate event. It kind of worked, and I was reminded of a passage from the otherwise turgid Far From the Madding Crowd, which has for some reason stuck with me for over 20 years, and about which I have blogged before.

My mental state moved from "this really isn’t much fun" to "I really want to be home now" to "there’s no way I’m ever going to run another full marathon", and my thoughts turned to the "reverse hangover" effect of running – the pain comes first, the enjoyment afterwards. (How different life might be if people could put themselves through terrible headaches and vomiting on a Friday night, if it guaranteed feeling on top of the world for the rest of the weekend.) However, even by doing this I seemed to have invoked the First Law of Running – pleasure does not come where and when it is expected – and thus denied myself even the runner’s high due to me at the end of the race (see later).

I was gladder than ever to see the M40, as we passed under its mighty concrete legs and crawled our way back into the arse end of Wycombe. There was a stiff headwind here, which made matters worse, and cruelly carried the voice of the finishing announcer back beyond the 12 mile point.

The finish is nice – one final climb at the approach to the park, then gently down through a paved glade of trees, separated from the finish area by a long, narrow pond. Mrs MD (36 weeks pregnant) had heroically marshaled the junior troops on the far side of the pond, and I got a great shout from them through the trees with about half a mile to go. I managed to reel in a couple of runners as we entered a torturously long arc across the park, then a lady from Chiltern Harriers appeared at my shoulder. I held her off for a good couple of hundred metres, but as the line approached she found an extra yard and pipped me by a second. The announcer even singled me out for a mention at the line – he said I looked glad to finish, and I don’t think he meant it in a good way.

Chip time was 1:54 – a little disappointing, some 6 minutes slower than my last effort over this distance. Taking into account the heat and the hill, I probably shouldn’t be too discouraged. At the time, my main feeling was "was it worth it?", disappointment with the time overshadowing any sense of achievement at covering the distance. But a couple of days later, with the legs all but recovered, the t-shirt worn around the house, and things in a little more perspective, there is a gentle glow, and a few lessons learned about running in heat, buying the right sort of figs, and not always achieving one’s expectations.

This is definitely an event I’d recommend, certainly if you’re relatively local, and not averse to 13 miles of hardtop. Organisation was excellent (including the aforementioned generous water stops), the support through the villages was great, there’s varied scenery (village and countryside), a nice finish, a very good goody bag (if you like that sort of thing – the Mars bar and cereal bar were both very welcome), and of course That Hill to add a bit of spice.