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October 2006
8th October 2006 - Not the Henley Half Marathon
With the start line little more than a 10K from home, the family set off about 9.20 for a 10.00 start. The support team would drop me off at the start, then make use of the local coffee shops and playgrounds before cheering me home to a glorious sub-1.45 finish. (On next to no training. While dodging flying pigs.)
Our last experience of Henley was an aborted meal at a restaurant, when we inadvertently tried to get into town in Regatta week, and ended up stuck in an inpenetrable traffic jam. This morning, as we recognised the bend where we got stuck before, I quipped that apparently 1,500 lumbering amateurs plodding round the town for two hours doesn't have quite the same draw as the world-famous Henley Regatta.
Not so.
Half a mile later and we were in a solid queue of traffic. 9.30 on a Sunday morning, and a country road is in gridlock. I think that the offender is the town bridge, and we should have taken a longer route and approached from north of the river. Anyway, we stewed for about 5 minutes, and then faced the options:
(1) Turn round and try and approach from a different direction.
(2) Me get out and walk the estimated couple of miles to the start, family go home.
(3) Give it all up as a bad job.
We doubted we had time for (1). (2) was a possibility, but with No. 1 son already expressing his frustration and boredom, and No. 1 daughter communicating an unknown complaint in the only way that a four-month-old can, the missus was already climbing the car walls at the prospect of me exiting in this unplanned and stress-increasing manner. The only reasonable course of action: abort mission.
GRRR.
I don't ask for much in life. I accept that I don't have much time to train. (The best I managed was 7 miles a couple of weeks ago.) I just wanted the chance to inflict pain on my under-trained body for a couple of hours. But even this masochistic pleasure was denied me.
So I was pretty pissed off for a couple of hours, like a child who's been promised a day out, and then, er, the family gets stuck in a traffic jam and they have to go home. OK, so I was like a child. But in the end I had a nice relaxed day with the family. I was knackered enough in the afternoon just from normal life; with 13.1 miles on the clock I would have been a zombie. Worse things happen at sea. Just disappointed to have pulled out of a race for the first time ever.
Marlow half is next month. My normal route into Marlow involves the town bridge, and I shall not be going that way.
Cross-training of the 5-a-side kind resumes tonight, so look forward to more reports of not running soon.
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