Five days into 2003, and one of the runs of the year to report.
Here was one of those frozen-but-sunny-and-windless mornings that people always list as one of their favourite things in the entire universe. Along with crispy bacon sandwiches.
I was out by ten o’clock. The lawn was still frost-crunchy, the car windows opaque with ice. Even setting off, I knew this was going to be a good one. Nine miles ahead of me, but I felt strong and enthusiastic and unusually… happy. Happiness tends to come at the end, not the beginning, of a run.
A new route today. Normally for longish runs I head for the flatness and solitude of the canal, but the recent rains have reduced the towpath to a bog in many places. Even more important than the wellbeing of my shoes are my goals for the year ahead. Bluntly, I need to become a better runner. Almost all the races I’ve taken part in have seen me finish in the last 10% of the field. I’ve not been too bothered about this up to now. Indeed I still marvel that I’m actually taking part in races at all and, even more remarkable, that I’m not in last place every time.
But I’ve been doing this stuff for more than a year now, and it’s time to take it more seriously, and move up a bit. Take the 10K distance. Even most reasonably fit fun-runners finish in the 50-60 minutes band. The two 10Ks I’ve done have seen me take 65 minutes. A standard, plodder’s half marathon time would be 2 hours to 2:15. All my three halfs so far have me at around the 2:30 mark (even if I have pretty good excuses for two of them).
I want to start pushing up into these categories, so I’m having to rethink the format of my runs. For instance, up till now I’ve fervently avoided hills, so today I chose a route that took me up FOUR steep hills. Not especially long, but sharp enough to have me aching and gasping for air. I got to the top of only one of them without walking for at least a short stretch. It’s a start.
Today’s run took me round some back lanes for a couple of miles, then through the tranquil grounds of the local manor house, then off up the long, straight road towards Bradfield, in its way one of the prettiest villages in the county. It’s one of my favourite views — dropping down that final hill and into the village where the houses, the school and the church form a meandering line, stepping backwards into the countryside beyond. It lifts me at anytime but on this bright wintry morning, it was more appealing than ever.
There were plenty of grinning ice patches along the way. Only once, as I loped down the other side of the first steep hill, did I feel the earth slip beneath my feet, and it startled me into taking more care of where I was putting them.
Down to the crossroads, and left through the old village. I can’t tell you how uplifting it felt to run between these lovely sandstone walls, the hypnotic sun flickering through the trees. Yes, I know that the world is really all about gun-crime statistics and AIDS and global warming and buffoons like Bush and Blair….. but forgive me if I allow, just now and then, the act of running through rural England on a bright, wintry Sunday morning to make me forget all this for a few, despairingly wonderful moments.
Beyond Bradfield it was off into the open, panting countryside again. At exactly the 10k mark, the route takes another sharp left back towards home. Just here is a gem of a war memorial — one I’d not seen before. It’s hard to pass one of these heart-rending, sculptured crosses without stopping for a few moments. This one listed about 40 names, mainly from the Royal Berks Regiment, but there were two men (each described here as a "boy") who’d gone down in different ships at the Battle of Jutland. Almost every name was attached to the place they fell, and it read like a grisly top ten of World War I battlefields. The Somme, Ypres, Bapaume, Loos, Aras, Mons, Verdun… One said simply "lost somewhere in France".
It was time for a short break in any case, so I sat on the top step of the monument and spent some time with the lads. I scoff at organised religion and ‘capital S’ Spiritualism, but I do admit talking to these guys on occasions like this, and I like to pretend that they may hear me. I looked round at the old farm and the unspoilt lanes. A scene that would have been familiar to some of these chaps, even though they were last here ninety-odd years ago.
Do other people born decades after the First World War, feel somehow guilty about what happened?
It took a half mile to stop thinking about this. Then another hill, and onto the road back towards home. As I hit the 8 mile mark I felt strong and full of running again, and actually increased my pace, the closer I got. I could have carried on past the gate, but I wanted to stop while I still felt elevated and energised and inspired. Arriving back home, my new toy told me I’d travelled 9.36 miles. Hmmm. Nine and a half miles and god knows how many hundreds of years.
But what a great run, and what a gorgeous morning. I was overflowing with joy. The two outings earlier in the week, the Hyde Park 10K and Friday’s 4-miler, typify most of my runs. I’m glad I do them, I’m happy when they’re over, but they are often more work than pleasure. The reason I keep doing them is the certain knowledge that, just once in a while, a run like today’s will come along. It was glorious, and it makes all the other ones worthwhile.
As I was taking my shoes off, M took my bedraggled picture. Then I celebrated with two crispy bacon sandwiches for breakfast. Does it really get better than this?
