Self-control in the face of temptation, particularly in the realm of confectionery, isn’t a claim I ever thought I could make. Now I’m not so sure. After this evening, I’ve gone up in my estimation.
Just as some races are planned, even entered and paid for, a long time in advance, but never actually done, others just ambush you. Lying in wait for me this evening, hiding among the trees in the Outlook Centre in Bracknell Forest, was the Forest Five. I hadn’t even heard of it yesterday. Today, I know all about it.
The race emerged after a thought that I should extend some of my midweek runs. Wednesday seemed like a good candidate, and today’s Wednesday. As a kick-off, I should go out and run five miles, I thought. But it’s a funny distance to run on my own. I’m happy with my short, round-the-block 3.5 milers, and anything stretching into 7 miles and above can be dealt with by heading out along the canal. But five miles? An irksome sort of distance. A little research uncovered this event. It seemed like the answer.
Bracknell isn’t overburdened with a good reputation. It’s regarded as a slightly bourgeois Luton – but only slightly. Mention it, and people who’ve never been near the place exhibit an instinctive wrinkling in the nose and forehead areas, and they break off eye contact. We’ve been there a few times to visit the admirable Arts Centre – the only place we know within a 20 mile radius of where we live that will show a decent non-blockbuster film. Passing along the ring road, the modern, high-rise town centre is clearly visible, but nothing has ever tempted us into it. There was something in the news recently about ‘clone towns’ – those whose individuality had been all but extinguished by the creeping presence of identikit retail chains. Bracknell is that kind of place.
So I was surprised to hear that there was any sort of forest there at all – but sure enough, a bit further past the Arts Centre you come across 2600 acres of forest and trails. What a stunning discovery. It’s wonderful.
A midweek race in summer, I’ve realised, is a grand thing. I need to do more of them. They tend to be short, which is always a bonus, but there’s a special pleasure in thrashing out the remnants of a tough day’s work (as today’s was) in the middle of a dense, pine-scented forest.
There were probably 500 of us there, paying guests of the Bracknell Forest Runners. A tenner to pay on the night was a little steep, unlike the five miles that lay before us.
Mile One was awful. If I’d known any prayers, I’d have been reciting them. And if it hadn’t been a race, and more to the point, if I’d not paid £10, I might have bailed out after a couple of minutes. By this point I’d already muttered something similar to “Oh dear” a couple of dozen times. I was dog tired, and still feeling blubbery and inflated. You often hear sports people talk about feeling “pumped up” for a race or a match. I often feel that too, but I’m not sure we mean the same thing at all.
I started close to the back. This was going to be a slow and gentle jog up towards the base-camp of my October marathon. After half a mile I was wondering whether to stop for a walk. It was that bad. But I didn’t. Instead, I tucked in behind two rotund middle-aged ladies as they discussed their favourite sweets. One described how her neighbour had give her a box of hand-made Belgian chocolates recently as a thank-you for looking after her schizophrenic hound while she went to Bruges for a weekend with her husband to celebrate a wedding anniversary. Trouble was, she explained, although all the chocolates were different, they had identical wrappers. Most weren’t very nice, she reported, but she’d had to unwrap and eat them all to find the good ones. Her friend panted orgasmically alongside her as the kaleidoscope of ingredients, flavours and textures were detailed. “Sometimes you just have to finish eating a sweet to know for sure that it ain’t a good ‘un”. They giggled. Well, it passed the time until we reached the first mile marker, then I had to let them plod on ahead of me. It was that bad.
The second wasn’t much better. Here, I really slowed down and just had to grind out the yards. I could feel my hot sweat starting to seep through the top of my head and sprinkle over my pathetic knees. Why do I do this? It was turning into the most miserable run I could remember in a long time. Trudge, trudge, trudge.
The great consolation was the forest, its fragrant embrace, and the soft, moist trail that made an interesting change of underfoot scenery. So far removed from the office, the city, the motorway, the Powerpoint presentation. Gradually, I started to think, “what does all that matter anyway?” I could feel myself being soothed and massaged by my environment. It probably matters quite a lot, but not all the time.
I managed to keep on through the second mile marker, miraculously without stopping for a breather. The course was flat apart from the few hundred yards before the Mile 3 sign, where suddenly the trail plummeted. Oh god, this could mean only one thing…. and the concomitant ascent wasn’t long in coming. It was a bang in the face. Sudden, and over pretty quickly. I even carried on shuffling up it without dropping anchor. At the very top we were met by the 3 mile marker and a grinning marshal. Here, along with most of the other loiterers, I finally stopped for an arms-akimbo walk.
The 4th mile was no easier, but I was now becoming tempted to enjoy it. Perhaps it was the prospect of finishing. My horrible state of personal disrepair meant I was feeling really quite tired, but as long as I could just hang on I’d be OK.
And then… and then something happened that really shocked me.
As I lumbered across the fourth mile marker, I dragged my eyes up from the spongy mud beneath me, and looked ahead. It was a long, straight trail down towards the finish. There were eight people stretched over the hundred yards in front of me, and between that group and the finish line were another 12. I know that because I counted them as I overtook them.
It was a strange experience for me. Unprecedented, I should think. The last mile of a race is always horrible, but this time, I just forced myself to run as fast as I could. An 08:45 mile won’t sound hypersonic to many people reading this, but over here where I come from, it felt like it. I’d looked at the first bunch of runners ahead of me, and felt suddenly disdainful of them. Not a snooty disdain, but a competitive disdain. An unfamiliar feeling of “I can beat you if I try”. I also remembered that I did a marathon a few weeks ago, and shouldn’t be shrinking from a 5 mile run. So I just sort of plunged forward, taking in as much air as possible, trying to get a rhythm going with my feet. I managed to keep going like that for a mile. It was startling but satisfying.
Through the funnel at the end, panting and moaning and whimpering, where I collected my rather elegant “Forest 5” mug, cup of water and… and Mars Bar. Oh wow, what a delightful sight that was. Since the overheard conversation about Belgian chocolate, I’d been dreaming of the stuff, wondering if I should stop on the way home for a bar or two. And now here I was, after a 5 mile run, being presented with a slab of soft toffee and chocolate. And then I remembered I was supposed to be losing a few pounds, and shouldn’t be eating this rubbish. A terrible time to have a crisis of conscience. So I didn’t eat it. Instead, it sat on the passenger seat, tormenting me for 20 miles. It’s now in the fridge, where it will stay, an eternal symbol of sacrifice and inner resilience.
That sort of thing.
Sitting in the car park, my face a sweaty beacon of smugness, watching a young couple drinking Pimms out of their new race mugs, I had a few overheated minutes to reflect on the evening. The dreadful first 3 or 4 miles, than that exhilarating final one. Good enough to sweep away all that went before it. This was a fantastic race for me. I’d tugged at a door that I’d never had the self-confidence to go near before. It had opened, and all was well. How different I felt now about the race, compared with my half-way verdict.
Trouble is, all races are different, despite looking the same. Most aren’t very nice, but you just have to unwrap them all to find out. And sometimes you have to get to the end of one before you know for sure that it’s a good ‘un.
Sweet.
