“Ooooh, what a grey day”.
Another week, another aimless plod through rural England. The Bramley
20 is a bigger undertaking than last week’s half marathon, but the tale
is a simpler one.
The running landscape was much the same as last weekend. Workaday
agricultural land, patches of dense wood, humourless farmers, mazey
lanes, rutted farm tracks. Grey skies. Foggy and cold.
Lying awake at five o’clock this morning, I mulled over what to try
this time. Like most hopeless plodders, I tell myself that all I need
to do is shuffle the pieces into the right order, and Bingo!
Today I was a Mourinho, not an Eriksson. I threw everything up in the
air then snatched at a few things as they dropped again. Today I
would…
-
have almost no breakfast, just an elderly banana and a small glass of
supermarket smoothie - adopt a run-walk strategy from the beginning
-
fill my pockets with Fruit Pastilles and Wine Gums for in-race
nutrition - take an iPod
Maybe this isn’t a great way to conduct a test. Just one of these
changes could have been the key to an improved product; the mystery
ingredient that makes Pimm’s Pimm’s. More than one change, and who
knows if one is more significant than another? They might even be
cancelling each other out.
So the big question — did it work? — remains unanswered.
I set my sights low for this race. To do a sub-5 hour marathon, I need
to clock up 26 miles at around 11:27. My aim at Bramley was to finish
the race at this pace.
The first 10 miles were good. I felt strong and capable, but not happy.
It was a dismal day. An overcast, monochrome day. Gusty, with a
freezing edge to the wind, I never felt cosy or pleased to be there.
I’ve railed against those who listen to radios or MP3 players during
races, but on this occasion I didn’t eat my own dogfood. I just
couldn’t face 20 blank miles on a day like this. So I strapped on my
new iPod Nano, and listened to 3 episodes of the Ricky Gervais shows
currently doing the rounds, interspersed with a random selection of
tunes. There was something grimly appropriate about me of all people,
in the second half of the race, pulling out the iPod and setting it to Shuffle.
It’s exactly what I did for the second 10 miles.
12 miles in, the heavens opened, and the cold, gloopy rain never
stopped. Man, it was bad. Cold, wet and weak. Pissed off. I chugged and
I chugged, each mile walking for one minute.
But I got round. The last 2 or 3 miles were pretty murderous; as hard
as the tail of any marathon I’ve clung to.
Part of me is pleased of course. I don’t want to do myself down. Let’s
face the facts: I ran a 20 mile race in the pouring rain, on a bitterly
unpleasant wintry February morning. This wasn’t a sheltered urban
course, but open countryside. Allow me to do something I rarely do —
give myself a shred of credit for sticking at it, when all my instincts
told me to forget it. 20 miles is an achievement.
I came in at 3:49 which means my pace was, yes, 11:27, precisely the
rate I need to achieve to get round my marathon in 5 hours.
This may seem like good news, but the second 10 miles were much slower
than the first. Instead of giving me hope for my Zurich task, it seemed
to do the opposite. I had to wonder why I was doing this to myself.
Perhaps I should act my age, and lower my sights.
