20 miles today. An awkward tick in a big box. I managed to make most of the errors that I like to warn novice marathoners against: going out too fast, doing too much the day before, not getting enough sleep. Maybe it was good to be reminded of these mistakes again now — just in time to ensure I avoid them on marathon day in 14 days.
I did this race once before, 7 years ago, just prior to my first marathon in April 2002. Here’s my race report from back then:
Mon 25 March 2002
And so, the fabled three-week taper begins. Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here. The encouraging daily emails I get from the Hal Higdon training programme say back-slapping things like "Don’t worry! The hard work is now behind you!" Well perhaps it is: apart from that last tiny detail like the 26.2 miles of the marathon in 20 days time…Yesterday was a big day: the longest long-run of the entire training programme. Not only was it a red-letter day but the strong Spring sunshine made it a red-neck and red-shoulders day, and the distance ensured it was a red-thigh day. It was also a pretty red-face day too (let me know when you tire of this weedy joke) as I only just avoided finishing last.
It was certainly a more serious field than the two half marathons of the past two weeks. At Fleet and at Reading in particular, there was a good proportion of fun-runners and charity-racers which ensured that I had plentiful company at the back of the field. Perhaps the 20 miles of Worthing was just too intimidating for most casual runners, or perhaps it was a little too out-of-the-way for many. Whatever the reason, there were very few plodders like me to be found.
Worthing is a pleasant-enough town down on the south coast. It’s always had a somewhat moribund public though recently it seems to have begun to wake up from its long sleep, and there’s even talk of it ‘doing a Brighton’ and becoming a breakaway fragment of the Home Counties’ IT industry. When I originally booked a place I had visions of running majestically across the golden sands, the sea breeze in my hair. Or at least the chance to pound along the front, hearing the waves crashing against the rocks. But I never even found out if Worthing has any rocks or golden sands. Certainly there wasn’t too much sea to be seen from the course.
I was accompanied this time by M and the in-laws, who live only 25 or so miles away. They dropped me off in good time though I still managed to start in last place as, right up till that last moment, I was trying in vain to have a final pee in a nearby field. Urinating in front of a thousand people, especially when they are running away up the road without you, calls for a particular kind of single-mindedness. Whatever quality it requires, I don’t seen to have it. Eventually I had to give up and tear after them.
This was a hard slog of a race. It was warm and sunny, and the pace was brisk. Too brisk, which was probably half the trouble. My aim was to complete the 20 in 4 hours: an average of 12 minutes a mile. The first 6 miles, however, were: 09:15, 09:20, 10:22, 10:16, 10:23 and 09:21. Quite bizarre, and unwise.
The course was a 5 mile circuit, repeated four times. The first was perhaps the hardest – and certainly the fastest. At the end of it, I began to slow down quite markedly. After around 7 miles I was caught up and lapped by the leader. Just shot past me like someone running 50 yards for a bus. There was a bit of a gap, then came a steady stream of sickeningly fresh-looking, sturdy athletic types.
Halfway through the second lap I got chatting to another runner who, like me, preferred the civilised climate at the rear of the field over the undignified frenzy of the front. I warmed to him when he revealed that he lived in Shepherds Bush, my spiritual home, and the real home of my football team. Tragically, he then confessed to being a Fulham fan. Oh. There followed a slightly awkward silence for a moment until we realised that we must both hold Chelsea in equal disdain, and this got the conversation going again. We chatted for a few minutes before I pressed on again. But our shared lack of speed and energy kept dragging us into alignment, and we chatted on and off for much of the last half of the race.
One of the several low points of the race was the end of the third lap. As I passed through, onto the fourth circuit, most people in front of me had already done this, and were now completing their race, branching off instead towards the finish. Bitterly, I wondered how many back markers like me had taken the opportunity to pretend that they’d done four when really they’d managed only three? Perhaps none, but I was struck by how deserted the race suddenly became after that point.
For the whole of the final lap there were two teenage girls about 200 metres in front of us. Eventually they began to tire and I decided I had to overtake them – which I finally did, about 100 metres from the finish. I felt a bit guilty about having left Gordon, the other guy behind, but well, he was a Fulham fan after all. I diluted my guilt with a cup of orange squash that I had waiting for him as he eventually crossed the line a few minutes later. We chatted for a moment or two before I went off to meet up with M again. If he reads this, good luck for the marathon, and thanks for the company.
Final time was 3 hours 57 minutes, just within my target. All in all a strange, low-key occasion with very few spectators and surprisingly little excitement despite a thousand people either haring or hobbling round the town 4 times. Perhaps that says it all about the endearingly English languor of Worthing.
Oh yeah, and my toenail finally fell off…
plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.
The course was the same, as was the weather, the absence of any race strategy, starting too quickly, the feeling that it "a hard slog of a race", and the apprehension about the marathon ahead.
Hard to say whether the profile of the entrants has changed. I didn’t think there was a dearth of slower runners this time round, though perhaps my plodder antenna has become more sensitive through the 52 races that separate this Worthing from the last. I became pretty complacent during that period, often citing my consolatory observation that "however old and fat and slow I may be, there is always going to be someone even older, fatter and slower". That sludgy smugness was challenged by the Kennet Kanter last year. This was the race where I managed to fall asleep in a field halfway through, finishing in last place about an hour behind anyone else. In retrospect, a hilarious occasion, but one that did send out a mild tremor to remind me that I shouldn’t provoke the running deities too much.
I didn’t feel like doing this race when I woke this morning. I was unrested. Two successive late nights and a vigorous 75 minutes of cycling, running, elliptical training and leg-pressing in the gym yesterday left me feeling achey and weak. Not an ideal state for a 20 mile road race.
Like last time, we stayed in Crawley at the in-laws, only 45 minutes drive away, though the early start (9 a.m.) still forced me out of bed before seven. With banana, cereal bar and sports drink despatched, I snuck out and was on my way.
I had to keep nervously reassuring myself that satnav knows best, as it led me away from the obvious route. I needn’t have worried. It was clever enough to divert me away from the bustling metropolis of downtown Worthing, and through a series of chocolate-box Sussex villages instead, to the Goring side of the town, where the race was to start and finish.
I parked up along the front and sat there for a minute, gazing out on the soporific sea. There’s something hypnotic about the calm blue majesty of it all. I shut my eyes and instantly started falling into that soft black hole that leads to deep slumber. Not a good sign, so I forced myself out of the car, and began to trot the half mile to the start before realising I’d left my GPS watch in the boot. This sent a mild frisson of anxiety through me, as I could clearly see the runners mustering in the distance. But as usual, I made it just in time, even managing a last minute pee in a handily-placed copse. It’s never a good idea to start a race panting breathlessly, but so it was, and off we went.
Four 5 mile laps lay ahead. The first one was easy enough, but by the end of the second I was struggling, and starting feel worried. If I felt like this after 10 miles of a dead flat course, how would I feel after 10 miles of Boston undulation? My target had been nothing more than to finish within 4 hours, feeling comfortable. A modest goal, admittedly, but I’m not changing my Boston aim, which is to finish the race in one piece, lower limbs intact. Given these middling ambitions, I should have forced myself into 12-minute mile crawl just for the first iteration at least, but instead, the Garmin stats show that all the first ten miles were all between 10:01 and 10:38. For a hot and sunny 20 miler, that’s just too fast for me to sustain, and so it proved.
During mile 11 I took my first, brief, walk break, and the rest of the race was peppered with more. I doubt if I completed a full mile in the second half of the race without having to swap my lumbering running style for a sort of guilty march. I doubt if any walking spell lasted longer than a minute, but there were a lot of them.
Just over halfway through the 3rd lap, I was beginning to despair at the thought of having to do another 7 miles. But then, as I passed the 13 mile mark, I looked at my watch, and realised I’d completed the half marathon distance marginally faster (by about 30 seconds) than I’d managed for the Reading Half last Sunday. This was crazy pacing, but it was the first time I’d noticed. The reason for the struggle became clearer. My immediate predicament was no better, but I was cheered by the news that the culprit was my incompetence, rather than my body. Perhaps naively, I feel I have more control over the former.
My fellow runners were a friendly and supportive bunch. From the snatches of overheard conversation, and the array of charity teeshirts (mine included), many were aiming for the London Marathon in 3 weeks time. I chatted to 3 or 4 FLM-ers, and as usual, handed out plenty of unsolicited advice. In particular, I warned them against starting too quickly, and told them to make sure they had two good nights sleep before the race. Physician, heal thyself!
Even the faster runners, many of whom lapped me, called out encouragement if they caught me during one of my frequent walk breaks. I don’t think that someone calling out "Keep going, well done!" has any real practical effect, but it makes me feel better about the noble qualities of my fellow runners.
The final lap dragged apart from the very last mile, which only goes to prove that part of this game is psychological. The 20th lap should be the hardest of the lot, surely? And perhaps it was the toughest physically, but in my mind it had become the beautiful mile, and one I wanted to embrace and enjoy. No coincidence that it was the fastest lap of the entire second half of the race. From nowhere, a second wind appeared, and I even managed to overtake a handful of the flagging runners spread out ahead of me. How good it felt to round that kink in the long final lane, and to see the huge empty blue sky above the English Channel, and to smell the sea, and feel its chill. On previous laps it had been a cold and hostile blast; now it felt refreshing and liberating and celebratory. And how good to be able to turn into the finish area this time, instead of running straight past it, as we had had to do three times.
The memento was unusual, and nicely presented in a posh-looking box. A paperweight I suppose. Two athletic runners entombed in a heavy, transparent plastic cube, enscribed with the race name and date. I like my medals, but this was just as nice to have. No punnet of tomatoes a la Almeria, but this will do.
Race over, training almost over. I am now officially tapering, with distances reduced and, traditionally, calories increased. I will have to be cautious about the latter. On the morning of "the Lewes hamburger" incident a few months ago, I was 239 pounds. This morning? 200 dead. I’m pretty pleased with that, even though I’m not going to lose the 50 pounds that I felt I needed to by marathon day. If I can keep it to around 40 pounds, I’ll be satisfied, but I won’t do that by tearing into double portions of pasta for the next two weeks.
The one self-imposed constraint I plan to relax comes next weekend. On February 8th, I mentioned the sad closure of The Crown, a local village pub whose beer I took a special pleasure in. Against all expectations, I had an email from the new gaffer yesterday, announcing that it is to reopen on Easter weekend. I don’t want to invite aboard yet more of the auld enemy — complacency — but the last few weeks have been more successful than I could have hoped, and I intend to mark the fact in traditional English fashion.
