The inaugural “London Half Marathon” at Silverstone was a strangely soulless affair.
I should be thinking of it as a good day’s work, as I knocked ten minutes off my previous best time, but I can’t help feeling disappointed by the event, and by my performance.
We got there with no problems. The we includes Alfred from Mexico City, and Darryl from Chicago – two postgraduate Oxford students to whom I’d agreed to give a lift. Getting to Silverstone by public transport is more than difficult. It’s just about impossible. To get there from Oxford would apparently have required them to travel first to London – and even then the journey would have been complicated and uncertain.
For some reason, I’d assumed they’d be running Blues, gunning for sub 1:15 half marathon times. I’d already rehearsed the humiliating exchange in which I’d have to explain that 2:20 was my target for the half marathon, not the marathon.
Two hours twenny for the half? But… but that’s eleven goddam minutes a mile, man! You cannot be serious!
But no, they were both new runners, aiming for around two hours, and were good company.
The Silverstone track is notorious among Formula One fans for being difficult to get in and out of, but we arrived with no difficulties.
I’d not been here before. Motor racing, and cars in general, bore me silly. But you tend to associate F1 with wealth and state-of-the-art technology, and I was looking forward to the futuristic grandstands and modern facilities.
The reality was different. There was a kind of faded, seventies feel about the place. The grandstands were small and ramshackle, like those you see at minor football grounds. The fabled pits turned out to be a series of disappointingly clean, empty garages. There was nothing – not even the faintest whiff of Veuve Clicquot – to hint at motor racing.
Silverstone’s most striking feature is its featurelessness. It’s a sort of huge compound bounded by the racetrack and car parks. Inside the circuit is a reluctant network of patched-up paths and the odd portakabin-like structure, quite out of proportion to the overall size of the complex. There’s a down-at-heel, hollow atmosphere. On Grand Prix day, it must be throbbing with excitement and colour, but here, today, it was just a vast, soulless wilderness.
It reminded me of those amateur cup finals at Wembley I used to sneak into when I was a kid. It was a great occasion for the teams and their supporters, but when you have ten thousand people inside a stadium designed for ten times that number, the atmosphere suffers. It’s ghostly. You’re more conscious of those who are missing than those who are present.
There wasn’t much to do while we waited for the midday start. We gazed blankly at the London marathon merchandise. We sat around in the empty garages, huddled together like refugees, waiting for something to happen. The catering consisted of a string of burger and fried chicken stalls. Amazingly, they weren’t selling much in the way of burgers or fried chicken to the ten thousand people who were just about to run thirteen miles.
I did my stretching and warm-up, and tried unsuccessfully to have a pee. Being able to drink several pints of fluid without wanting to urinate is generally a pretty useful skill, but when it comes to running, and the need to jettison excess ballast before setting off, it becomes a nuisance. I knew that as soon as the race started I’d want to go, but couldn’t force the issue before the off.
Eventually, around 11:50, I joined the several thousands of others already lined up on the track, and waited for the midday start. There were many people arriving late, so we were delayed ten minutes. During this time, there was (I later learned) a one minute silence to mark the recent death of Chris Brasher, but we had no idea. The PA system didn’t seem to work properly, and we heard no announcements where I stood (just after the halfway mark). We didn’t hear the gun or hooter or whatever it was this time, but a big shout went up from the front of the crowd, and slowly we began moving.
The spirit was good at this point, and there was some noise from the supporters in the grandstand. But once we’d left the start area, the race seemed strangely subdued, and this atmosphere stayed with us for the entire thirteen miles.
I was happy for the first few miles. My target in this, the first of three successive half marathon weekends, was 2 hours 20 minutes, and for a while I was convinced I might even get round in 2:10. To do that, I needed to run about ten minutes a mile all the way round. The first five were: 10:03, 09:46, 10:07, 09:48, 9:50, followed by a slightly slower sixth and seventh (10:28 and 10:23). And that’s when I hit a problem.
I’d stopped for a pee at the side of a warehouse-like building, and immediately afterwards I felt much weaker. Strange, as the relief should have driven me forward with renewed heart. It was like hitting the wall – except this was 7 miles, not 20. If it wasn’t the wall… perhaps it was the hedge, or the flimsy fence. I hit something. From going at a reasonable pace, I suddenly had to stop and walk for a minute or so, and I knew then that the game was up.
I spent the first half of the race convinced I’d get home in 2:10, and the second half desperately concerned that I wouldn’t make 2:20. I eventually came home in 2:20:15. My remaining splits were 11:24, 11:24, 11:20, 12:03, 11:09, 11:22, 01:03.
The finish was something of an anti-climax. We got across the line, meandered along the track to an opening, then doubled back on the other side of the barrier to a line of helpers handing out carrier bags. I was disappointed that the medal was in the bag. A medal should be put around your neck by a pretty, swooning teenaged girl gushing compliments as she does so. The other disappointment was the lack of nutrition at the end. The bag contained a pouch of disgustingly sweet Lucozade Sport and a bottle of water, but I needed chocolate or bread.
Returned to the car, met up with the other two guys, then spent an hour or so trying to leave the car park. The most interesting thing to happen in this period was the discovery that they had been allocated consecutive race numbers, even though they’d entered separately.
Overall, it was a disappointing day. It’s always good to do a race, and I’d not run this distance since the marathon in October, so perhaps it should be no surprise that I struggled. But I’m concerned by what seemed to be the sudden loss of energy halfway through. Strangely, it happened shortly after I glugged some Lucozade Sport, which is supposed to produce the opposite effect.
It made me wonder how much I enjoy the act of running. I love having run, and I like looking forward to a run. I like to plan races. But the run itself? With few exceptions, no, I don’t think I like it much. Not this distance, anyway. Or am I just feeling a kind of post-race weariness? Maybe this was just a bad run.
I’ve got two more racing Sundays ahead to think about it.
