As the list seems to be the medium of the moment, here’s another brief one. More things I learnt today:
- the humble Ford Focus is well capable of speeds in excess of 115 miles per hour;
- in the interests of minimising stress of all kinds, get to the starting point of the race before it actually begins;
- do not underestimate the importance of adequate hydration and carbo-loading in the days leading up to the race;
- you can protect your feet with the right sort of plasters;
- don’t overdo breakfast;
Yes, despite today’s race not starting till 12:15pm, and despite the lessons so painfully learnt just one week ago, I once again managed to be late for the big off. But today was even worse. Today I didn’t have Reading’s gratifying incompetence to rely on, which meant the race started on time – and without me.
After a good sleep I got up around nine and had too much for breakfast: 2 x toast, cereal, banana, yoghurt. Fortunately I had three hours to digest this before running but it was still too much.
Last week I made the mistake of going online when I should have been doing useful things like pinning my number to my shirt. But as my wife likes to remind me, I don’t learn from my mistakes until I’ve made the same one at least three times, which is why this morning I decided to go online instead of…
At around 10:30 it suddenly hit me that there was only 1:45 hours to go till the race started, and as Fleet is 85 miles away, and as I hadn’t yet assembled or packed my things or even done something useful like pinning that number to my shirt, I was in trouble.
Out of the door by 10:55. I had 100 minutes to drive the 8 miles to the motorway, another 62 miles on the motorway, another 15 miles once I’d left it again, find a place to park and get to the starting point of the race. My only friend during this manic experience was Radio 3 and its soothing succession of madrigals and Gregorian chant. Not my usual Sunday morning listening but anything else would have meant more pandemonium.
I arrived in Fleet like Steve McQueen practising that car chase in Bullit. It was 12:05. I asked a marshal where the race started. "Right over the other side of that park", he said, "But you have to park your car over that way", and pointed in the other direction. Oh God.
Within 5 minutes I’d found an illegal parking space and got my shoes on. I pulled off my tracksuit bottoms and discovered that my shorts were on back-to-front. Oh God again. Shoes off, shorts off, shorts back on, shoes back on. 12:11 and I started sprinting back down the hill, past the marshal and into the park. No sign of the race. "Right over there mate," someone shouted. Oh God yet again. It was at least half a mile.
The soggy icing on this disintegrating cake was the condition of the ground underfoot as as I tried speeding from one side to the other. A muddy swamp. Half way across it my shoes had a thick coating of liquid mud. I was just beginning to feel the cold slop oozing through my socks when the mournful hooter sounded to start the race. I was still at least 400 yards away.
By the time I got across the park and down the treacherously muddy steps and into the lane, there was no sign of the runners. All that was left at the start was a thousand or two empty paper cups rolling around in the road and some rather melancholy bunting flapping about in the breeze. It was surreal, as if I’d been invited to some huge party, but got the time wrong and bowled up just after all the guests had left. Had they ever really been there?
To make it worse, I was now breathless and feeling pretty knackered. I’d done no stretching, no limbering up, no gentle warm-up. No exercise for 4 days in fact. Just a frantic 1:20 hours of driving and a mad sprint for three quarters of a mile, most of it across a morass of mud. Here I was: stressed out and weak and panting, and I hadn’t even started the race! Was there really any point in carrying on? Why not just go home?
The trouble was, there were a couple of marshals still loitering at the start, and when I appeared on the scene they started bellowing encouraging things like “Come on, you’re only a couple of minutes behind!” How could I do anything other than carry on running?
But it was painful. I was out of breath and tired (you will recall), and I’d have liked nothing more than a sunny bench, a nice cup of Earl Grey and a copy of The Observer. Instead I had to make do with running a half marathon.
It got worse. I rounded the corner, panting and flailing, just in time to run into a large crowd of spectators filling the lane to peer after the vanishing runners. There was a sudden, panicky announcement over the PA: “Please clear the road! We have a late starter!”
Oooh, the embarrassment as a thousand necks craned to catch a glimpse of the guilty individual. This quickly broke into a veritable tumult of cheers and applause as I panted past. This is how I was supposed to feel at the end of the race, not the beginning. I decided it might be counter-productive to yell “Stop looking at me, please!” Instead I blew a few kisses and took the ironic applause like a man… who had no choice really. All good clean fun, and the crowd lining the High Street seemed to be enjoying themselves. I think I succeeded in pretending that I too was having a great time. The truth was elsewhere.
By the time I reached the other end of the High Street, a great regiment of rhythmical backsides had briefly come into view before vanishing round a distant corner. Much against my instincts I just kept going, and eventually, just before the first mile point, I finally caught up with the back marker, a rather solemn looking lady dressed from head to foot in black. As I passed I politely apologised, but her Walkman left her oblivious to me and probably everything else.
It must have been my eagerness to catch up with the others but I did the first two miles in 20:18. For me that’s fast. Too fast probably, and I knew I’d struggle to keep it going. At Reading I’d felt much more in control, but here I struggled from the start, and I knew it would be hard to get round. My original plan was to beat last week’s modest time of 2:30:36. To do so I had to average around 11:20. For the first seven miles I thought I was going to do it. Miles 3 to 7 were 10:56, 11:14, 11:31, 11:23 and 11:21. I was just about on target.
In different circumstances I could have enjoyed this race much more than I had to. The surroundings couldn’t have been more of a contrast with Reading. Here was the quintessence of rural England. Undulating Hampshire countryside, quiet lanes winding past picture postcard village pubs. On one lonely stretch of road we passed four stately swans gliding past on a narrow lake.
Good weather too. Warm, even sunny in patches. As at Reading, I marvelled at the willingness of so many runners to dress up in leggings and sweatshirts and jackets on a day like this. Inevitably, after a mile or so people were pulling these things off and wrapping or draping them around any suitable bit of body. I can’t understand it. After a long, wet, freezing winter when I had no choice but to wear a tracksuit top (with shorts), the chance to wear a singlet or T-shirt comes as a welcome relief.
The quick start wore me out, and by halfway I was taking walking breaks every mile or so. The rest of the splits were 12:18, 11:59, 12:41, 13:15, 12:09 and 12:49. I ended up on 2:31:59, which was just 1:23 slower than last week. Had I started properly it would have been a different story but what the hell. Now that a day or so has gone past I think the start was pretty hilarious really.
Ha ha!! I certainly won’t make that mistake again….
