I woke yesterday thinking I must have left the radio on all night. White noise everywhere. And why was my neighbour hammering on the wall at such an hour on New Year’s Day?
The terrible truth took a moment or two to filter through. This was a corker of a hangover.
I was able to gather just enough marbles together to locate the clock, and to interpret the data. It revealed to me that in 80 minutes time, 50 miles away, my 10K race would be starting. Not just any 50 miles away, but 50 miles away in the centre of London. The very thought of struggling through the city feeling like this, just for the privilege of joining a load of goody-goody health fanatics was intolerable. Instead I closed my eyes, pulled the duvet over my head, and sank into a deep slumber, in which a remarkable dream began to unfold….
I dreamt that I got up, had a shower, ingested a couple of bananas, a block of malt loaf and a black coffee, pinned a number to my shirt and left the house.
I dreamt that I drove like the clappers down the M4, listening to Gregorian chant on the radio. This usually makes me feel like I’m in heaven. Not today though. Today I was in The Other Place.
Coming into London, you pass a derelict building on which someone has painted in three foot high letters: IT ISN’T A RACE!. I don’t think it’s intended to be profound, but it always makes me think. Over Hammersmith flyover, then plunging down into Earls Court and along the Cromwell Road through South Kensington, past the Natural History Museum. I dreamt that suddenly M was in the car, asking to be dropped off at the V And A. Then I was turning left up Exhibition Road, past the Science Museum and Imperial College, places I’d not visited for years. A minute or two later I was crossing Kensington Gore by the Albert Memorial, and parking along South Carriage Drive.
Jogging along Rotten Row I come across a man walking a golden retriever. He bellows out “Happy New Year” in an east coast American accent, and I realise it’s Kevin Spacey. A little further on I find a Tory member of the House of Lords strolling along with a very attractive young woman on his arm. His daughter, I’m sure. Fortunately I can’t recall his name. Twenty four hours on, I wonder if she can?
I get to the start of the race with ten minutes to go. It’s a mild day though rather grey. But it’s New Year’s Day, and just like your birthday, and Christmas Day, it feels subtly, indescribably different from any other.
The race starts and I find myself plodding behind a couple of guys wearing teeshirts which shout at me: THE BIBLE IS THE TRUTH OF THE WORLD! BELIEVE IT! I want to say to them, “Yeah, God played a blinder this week in the Indian Ocean, didn’t he?”, but this would agitate us all too much at what is supposed to be a grand athletic start to the new year.
For a while I forget that I’m hungover and dehydrated, and settle into a steady rhythm. The Hyde Park 10K is one smallish circuit repeated three times. It starts at the bandstand at the eastern end of the Serpentine and heads north towards Speakers Corner before turning left towards Kensington Palace and the Albert Memorial. Then round again along the northern edge of the Serpentine back to the bandstand where you can see the London Eye in the distance. London marathoners look to this landmark as a sign that they are in the last three or four miles of the race. Just before completing my first circuit I was lapped by the eventual Kenyan winner. I did think about chasing him, but I didn’t think about it for that long.
One feature of this race is the peculiar noises made by some of the runners. I noticed this at the same race in 2003. I presume it’s the same guys, because I’ve not noticed it anywhere else. I was overtaken by a couple of chaps at different points in the race who sounded like they were in enjoying very noisy orgasms. Except “enjoying” isn’t the right word as they sounded as if they were in deep pain. I suppose there has to be some solemn reason why they have to do this, but I’m afraid it still makes me laugh.
In the end, I was only a couple of minutes outside my PB. Perhaps it really was a dream after all. Despite being cotton-wool-headed and dried up, I somehow managed my fastest race pace for well over a year.
The afternoon was spent watching a listless and goalless draw between QPR and Brighton. I thought I deserved better than this after the sacrifice of the morning, but of course, god works in wondrous ways.
