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Race Report Part I
No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own.
He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
– Hunter S. Thompson
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
– Roy Keane
To enter such a demanding event knowingly under-cooked might be considered foolish; nay, reckless. To do so in the firm belief that you might run your best time is arrogance bordering on insanity. And yet ... in all honesty, how many of us, however secretly, harbour those crazy, unrealistic dreams as we join the shuffling, travelling throng in the early half-light, clutching our branded clothes bags as the vox humana swells. ‘Perhaps today’s the day, when it all falls into place, like rain out of a clear blue sky. My training’s not been the best, but you know ...’
I’d decided to take Southern Rail’s finest to the start. I worked this out when, on Saturday, I got around to finding out where the race start was. Preston Park is a short stroll from London Road on the Brighton line, so that was easy. Come Sunday morning I was still unsure of the start time. This laid back approach was in part deliberate. I wanted to casually sidle up to the event, as if by doing so I could somehow lessen the impact on my ill-prepared body. By the time I’d negotiated the woefully understaffed ticket office at Lewes and wedged myself in between two lycra-clad lovelies, that pretence had evaporated in the heady hubbub of excited pre-race chatter.
A seasoned runner who tells you he’s not looking for a time is akin to the squint-eyed golf hustler telling you he’s not played for months. I had not one, but two goals in mind. First I wanted to bag a sub-four hour run, thereafter a PB. I’d had such plans when I started this campaign. I was going to run the Road to Hell, the dispiriting, seemingly endless slog out to and around the monolithic Shoreham Power Station. I was going to add hours of hard-top pounding to the end of my Sunday hill runs. This time, more than any other time this time, I’m gonna find a way, find a way to …
Sorry. Invoking the spirit of England’s doomed 1982 World Cup effort might seem a little melodramatic, even for me, not to mention painful for football fans of a certain age. The facts are there for all to see, a stark condemnation of another ill-fated campaign launched in a fanfare of optimism. The seeds of failure were sewn long before the happy hopefuls boarded that BA flight to Spain, Glenn Hoddle's flowing locks a precursor to David Hasslehoff in his Baywatch super slo-mo pomp. Bryan Robson's shoulder was still a functioning part of his body. The World was their lobster ...
One out of four planned long runs in March, albeit a successful nineteen miler, is a pitiful return. Zero trips out to Shoreham or any other long, flat, soul/ knee destroying floggings completed, just the one solitary hard-paved add-on to weighed against all those good intentions.
And yet despite all this evidence to the contrary, I had this feeling that things would be OK. This mood was enhanced when I reached the park. Despite an icy chill in the air, the sun beamed through the treetops to keep us warm. I ran into the JDRF crew, then Lycra Tony and Jog Shop Sam, all buzzing and tripped out, high on ambient adrenaline, flowing like Ralgex-tinted incense across the battlefield. Around us runners gathered, stretching, chatting, queuing for toilets in lines that stretched for hundreds of yards. I took a call from Cam. She, Heather, and Mandy were by the baggage trucks. I set out through an ocean of knights preparing to battle their own personal demons, an array of fluorescent tops, shorts, and hats, branded tents, fluttering flags, enjoying the feel of what’s becoming a pretty big event. 18,000 were set to start under the somewhat bleary eye of Brighton & Hove Albion manager Gus Poyet. Gus knows a thing or two about taking a beating, having just returned from Upton Park with the ugly vibrations of a six-nil drubbing ringing in his ears.
I found Cam, exchanged hugs and set off for the start pen. A year ago I’d boldly put down my target time of 3:45. In exchange for such brass, the organisers afforded me a place in the red pen, just behind the elite runners. There were plenty expecting a good run as the pen was rammed. The girls were all ‘reds’ too. We managed to stay together until we’d crossed the start line (several minutes after the gun). We ran around the outside of the park, drawing level with the start after several (seven?) minutes, where, unbelievably, runners were still trudging towards the launch mats.
The first few miles were spent chatting with Cam. Heather and Mandy took off, we two happy enough to bobble along with the masses. I barely glanced at my watch, but it felt like we were moving at a decent clip. My game-plan, such as it was, was to go out as hard as I could manage ‘without pushing’. When the inevitable arrived, I’d see how long I’d got left and try to hang on to the finish. It’s not a technique I’d recommend. Far better to have a solid strategy built on mile markers, to pace oneself through the stages of the race. My disjointed approach had shot that all to hell. Like when James T. Kirk faced the unfair trial of the Kobayashi Maru, I elected to stick two fingers up to perceived wisdom and deploy the El Gordo defence circa Zurich 2006. Hanging on in quiet desperation is, after all, the English way. The big question was when would the bell toll? I would know for whom but just when would the benefit from the small amount of training I had done run out? When would those under-cooked legs start to coil up like severed tension wires? I had no idea.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
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