Reading ParkRun – 5K
Typical. You wait ages for a 5K race, then two come along at once.
For much of this week, I’ve allowed myself to slip into a negative frame of mind. Despite another week of austere dining, I seem to be bumping along the weight plateau once more. Average weekly loss so far in this campaign is around 2 pounds, but this week that’s slipped to a paltry half pound. A feeling of deep gloom sounds like an over-reaction, but when you’re a voluntary food martyr, you need to be able to see the promised land inching closer. It’s tempting to wonder why you’re bothering, if a week of no beer, steady exercise and healthy menus offers a prize of just 14 ounces (400 grams).
But then yesterday, I shook myself by the shoulders and issued a silent pep-talk. Thinking about the previous evening, when (admittedly uncharacteristically), I’d devoured a bag of chocolate eclairs while watching the excellent Portico Quartet at the Basingstoke Anvil, I forced myself to confront the possibility that my diet wasn’t flawless after all.
It’s time to call on the heavy analytical tools. In my pauperised thirties, when I toiled as a civil servant in Huddersfield, in exchange for a cruel scattering of groats, I found that logging in a notebook every penny I spent miraculously transformed my finances, even though I was unaware of any obvious change in my pattern of expenditure. Similarly, I’ve found that recording everything that enters my mouth (settle down please) always helps me lose weight. I’ve not employed this technique for a couple of years. but I’ll try it again now. Pen and paper would do the job, but given the choice, I generally prefer the more complex path.
Step forward weightlossresources.co.uk. There are plenty of web tools for this sort of calorie-counting but I’ve always opted for these chaps because they’ve been good to me in the past, and because they provide what I need. I set a goal, and they tell me how many calories I can get away with, adjusting the figures to take account of exercise along the way. To hit the weight target, and taking into account my sedentary lifestyle, I should apparently be restricted to 1611 calories a day (and this figure will shrink along with my own). Alarmingly, I learn that my favourite meal, breakfast, typically accounts for between 600 and 700 of this total. More positive is the news that running 3 miles earns me an extra 430 to spend in the food bank. Or the fridge, as I prefer to call it.
How do I know this? Because I’ve just run 3.1 miles, and entered it. The distance in question belonged to the first 5K race I have ever run, and it happened this morning. It was the Reading version of the ParkRun, a weekly festival of eye-bulging taking place in many venues across the nation at 9 a.m. on a Saturday. Always 5K, always free of charge, and supported by volunteers. A thoroughly laudable grass-roots initiative.
At 8.30, it was a cool, subdued morning, grey and drizzly. Perfect for running. We assembled at Thames Valley Park in East Reading, a pleasant stretch of open parkland separating the majesty of the river from the majesty of the UK headquarters of Microsoft and Oracle Corporation. The small car park gradually filled, and eventually cones and arrow signs started casually appearing on the grass. A race was being born before my very eyes.
There were 91 runners this week, comfortably exceeding the average of 77. I chatted to one of the volunteers. As usual, I felt the need to apologise for my presence and for the performance to come. It’s not done this formally of course, but I’ve realised that this is what my self-deprecating spiel amounts to. And it’s one of the reasons I want to show an improvement this season: to see what the view is like from the second floor of the athletic skyscraper, and how it might offer a new perspective on my own potential.
I went for a half-hearted warm-up plod, and was still desperately panting as I arrived back at the start, just in time for the off. The first mile of a race is invariably spent thinking: why am I here? On this occasion, the entire 3.1 mile distance was spent asking this question. I suppose because the distance is shorter than normal, I didn’t feel I could afford the luxury of relaxation, and so it felt like an urgent struggle the whole way: a desperate wrestling match with my continuing lack of aerobic fitness. I panted like an excitable hound from start to finish, listening to that persistent voice in my ear: This is doing me good… honest… this really is doing me good….
We headed along the river for half a mile before turning sharp right into the woods. It gave me the chance to glance sideways, and was reassured to see a dozen or so runners strung out behind me. Grass plodding is wearing on the legs, and it was good to get onto the firmer trail beneath the trees. Or so I thought. Heavy rain in the night had deposited a series of large puddles along the muddy path, forcing us to meander onto the waterlogged grass at regular intervals. I heard the mile alarm on my watch, and glanced at it, hoping this might have been for the end of mile 2. No such luck, but I did note that the first split was 9:57 which is pretty good for me in my current state.
But I couldn’t keep that up. As we set off on the second circuit of the woods, I felt a stitch growing in my upper abdomen, and had to slow down for a minute or two. Sure enough, someone finally passed me. I felt better 200 metres further on however, when I was able to slip past a flappy middle-aged couple who looked like they’d gone out too fast.
At last the second circuit was complete, and we were heading back across the riverside grass. For almost the entire race, I could hear the heavy breathing of a sturdy young woman behind me. I was convinced she was going to casually accelerate past me as we approached the finish, but she resisted the temptation. I later thanked her for not doing so, and she gave me a strange look, as if to ask: “What makes you think I had the option?”
I crossed the finish in 78th place according to my token, and stood in line, knackered, struggling to gulp enough compensatory oxygen into my lungs. I looked back to see the last few stragglers lumbering over the finish. At least I wasn’t last.
My watch said 32:06, and I decided to be content with this. My aim is to get to a sub-60 10K by the end of the year, so I need to make progress. But with 2 months to go, and (I hope) plenty more blubber to dissipate, I need to remain confident. It goes without saying that a sub-60 10K will need a sub-30 5K. My plan is to do the parkrun as often as I can make it. The principal enemy of this plan will be the need to get out of bed early on increasingly cold Saturday mornings. But if I do, I can look forward to a sensation of profound holiness as I get back home, showered and dressed and breakfasted, while M is still unconscious.
As I sat in front of the TV this afternoon, half-watching the late football match, still glowing with post-run pleasure, I casually wondered how long I would have to wait until my next opportunity to run a 5K race. I glanced at my watch. The answer? About… about two hours…..
Halloween 5K Nite Run, Reading
Sometimes an idea is best left on the drawing board, where it can contribute more to civilisation than it can as a reality. One thinks of Marxism. And Spudulike. And any invasion of Afghanistan throughout history. There’s the Sinclair C5, of course. And Eldorado, the ill-fated BBC soap opera.
Throughout much of this evening, I wondered if the Halloween 5K Nite Run should be added to that inglorious list. Like Paul Merton, hesitating over pulling the lever on Room 101, I tried to balance my selfish instincts against the greater good. In the end, it was saved, on the grounds that other people seemed to be having a good time. And more important, its existence gave me the chance to do something thoroughly strange: run two races on the same day, twelve hours apart. Not only the same distance, but pretty much the same course. Quick-thinking readers may regard this very plan as belonging in the same idea bin mentioned above. I wouldn’t consider it for longer distances, but I could get away with a pair of 5Ks.
For me, running a race is normally a solitary event. I go, run, and leave on my own — and particularly for local events, that’s how I want it. Same with a football match. It’s me-time; an introspective experience; an escape from the world. And yes, I know there’s irony in seeking solitude amongst large crowds, but you’ll find a purer form of isolation within a multitude of strangers than you will on a remote mountainside.
Tonight was as much a social gathering as a race. It’s churlish to complain about this. We are now obliged to observe Halloween with more enthusiasm than previously, and many Brits like the chance to dress up and make up. I don’t know why this is. Some sort of suppressed atavistic thespianism appears to be at work. I’m no anthropologist, or social psychologist. Grrrr-umpy old man, that’s me. Organised fun? Bah!
Seriously, I’m not that… serious. But I just wanted to run the race and go home. If I wasn’t being so strict on my eating and drinking regime, and had a post-race party or pub session to get to, it would have been different, I’m sure.
Around 350 souls appeared at the appointed hour. We were each handed a black, long-sleeved skeleton teeshirt, and a head torch. An hour later, after much PA hilarity, we were let loose into the night.
Head torch or not, I don’t recommend running a 5K race across damp grass and through the woods. Most of the time was spent staring at the dim pool of light at my feet, avoiding invisible bumps and dips in the field, and tree roots and puddles on the paths. I succeeded in spotting the roots (helpfully painted white) but was less lucky with the puddles. These mini-lagoons loomed out of the shadows with no warning beyond the squeal-splash of the runner directly ahead of me, by which time it was usually too late to divert my weighty trajectory.
I didn’t mind the damp feet or the mild peril of plodding in the moonlight, but it was a shame that the constant feet-watching prevented me from getting a near instant, same-day PB over the distance. I felt much stronger and better prepared this evening than I did this morning, and over a safer course would probably have done better. Instead, I came in about 90 seconds slower than earlier.
It doesn’t matter. It’s been a good day of new experiences: two races in one day, a ParkRun, the 5K distance, and a night race. Maybe the week did start in a negative light, but it ended in the moonlight, and with a renewed appetite for the challenges ahead.
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