Brighton has a kink. I’ll come to it.
Time break a minor tradition by actually writing about today’s Brighton
10K. For reasons now lost in the Sussex mists, I’ve written up all
thirty-odd races I’ve done apart from the two previous runnings of the
Brighton 10K. Having ignored it the first time, it seemed almost
customary to do so again. But it’s so long since I did a race of any
kind that I can’t let the opportunity pass to prattle on about it for a
bit.
I enjoyed the day, though the race itself was tough.
M and I arrived in Brighton at around 10, and after a mild ‘domestic’
about where to park, headed for the multi-storey behind the Metropole.
The decision seemed to provide a reasonable compromise between the
distances to the locations we had to make: the start of the race; the
“good shops”; and Alfresco, our post-race eating place. The Metropole
was equally inconvenient for everything, so we were happy with it. We
were able to part on good terms, with M heading off to the famous Lanes
at a pace far more impressive than anything I was likely to produce
during the race, while I strolled towards the start, down on Madeira
Drive.
Brighton’s a grand town; a true one-off. Nowhere else on this
perplexing island exists such a compelling combination of bleeding-edge
chic and fusty tradition. You’re just as likely to
be humiliated by a wacky performance artist pretending to be a statue
as you are by a cadaverous drug bum seeking baksheesh,
or an indignant, fur-clad nonagenarian wielding a shooting stick and a
placard about immigration. Frightening, but it’s why we keep coming
back.
I thought about this as I meandered down the sea front in the chilly
mid-morning sunshine. Past the rebuilt Grand Hotel, scene of the
most audacious attack on parliamentary democracy since 1605.
Whenever I walk past this building, something in me wants to say: “Bad
luck, Magee”, but…. but as much as I despised Thatcher during the
80s, I have to suppress that voice. We do things better than that here.
I arrived at the race start, dumped my stuff in the baggage truck and
wandered back towards the rear of the field. The distant familiarity of
it all was both comforting and slightly perplexing. I’d run so little
since early April. A lot seems to have happened since then: redundancy,
illness, the World Cup, new job, blobs of bereavement, interesting
experiences in Belfast, Western Ireland and Iceland… but here I was,
back where the spring had begun, doing another race. It was like
erecting a sign that only I could see: Business As Usual.
It was a relief to re-acquaint myself with the chatter and the stink of
linament. And with Nigel and Ash indeed, who eventually appeared just
as I was thinking I might be the victim of a practical joke.
The reunion was brief; the race was about to start. As we crossed the
line, an announcement about FatBoy Slim’s participation gave Ash the
opportunity to poke fun at my portliness, but I was too stoical to
acknowledge the slight. I stared straight ahead, and began panting, as
Ash and Nigel vanished into the distance.
Looked at from one view, the Brighton 10K is a futile experience. You
chug along for half a mile, then turn round and chug back. Carry on
along Madeira Drive, manoeuvring round pushchairs and streetwise
mongrels…. and exasperated cyclists… until you get to the
aforementioned kink at around 4K where you drop down to the seafront
for a second round against the same opponents. The next excitement
comes at 6.5K, Hove, where you suddenly go 180 degrees and chug all the
way back.
My struggle began at the kink, first time round. It’s been several
months since I ran sub 10:30 miles but the first couple today were
10:18 and 10:24, and they were enough to make the rest of race drag. In
the end I limped home in my slowest ever 10K time, but I wasn’t too
bothered by that. It was important to do another race, and just to get
round reasonably comfortably.
The truth is, it wasn’t reasonably comfortable at all, but I’m not
going to get too anxious about that. The next 10 weeks, until the
Almeria Half, is the critical test. I have to get a lot fitter, lose
another 20 pounds, and aim to get a decent time in Spain. If I can do
that, the Two Oceans is on. If I can’t get round Almeria feeling
pleased with myself, I may have to stop kidding myself about running 35
miles in April. But I’ll have a go.
The apres-race was, as always, well worth doing
the race for. I met up with the others in Alfresco,
a civilised place for recalorification. M arrived at the same time as
me. Sweder was already there, with his wife and delightful dancing
queen daughter, Phoebe. It was particularly good to meet up with MarathonDan
and family, and bad luck that a sore throat had kept him out of the
race. His two kids provided the cabaret as the adults guzzled beer and
chomped through good Italian food on plates the size of dustbin lids.
off Just as we had given up on Nigel, he arrived, beaming triumphantly
at a better than expected performance. Or so he claimed. Neither Ash or
I spotted him during the race, so we suspect that while we were
wrestling with the running monster, he was enjoying a stroll along the
beach, or a pre-lunch aperitif in one of the fashionable bars in the
town centre. Eventually, the truth will out.
We ate and drank and swapped… not quite war stories. A 10K is too
trivial for that. Skirmish stories, perhaps. As runners do when they
meet, we relived previous races and looked forward to those yet to
come, particularly those in Almeria and South Africa. Sweder was
dismissive of the flat urban 10K. It had robbed him of his weekend
scrap with the hills. For him it was a step back, but for me it was a
good day’s work, a psychological stride forward, even if the
performance was a personal worst.
The race mattered, but more important was the meal and the socialising.
It reminds you want this stuff is really all about. It carried on for a
while after leaving the restaurant, when I went for a couple of beers
with Nigel to catch up on other stuff. All very enjoyable, but tomorrow
the hard work must restart.
