That time I kind of got hit by a car

I reckon that in the 7-ish years that I’ve been a regular runner I’ve run somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 miles. And yesterday, for the first time in all those miles, I was hit by a car.

I’ll let that thought linger before I explain.

It gets a lot less dramatic from here. To be honest, it would be more accurate to say that a car was hit by me.

I was on a very slow recovery jog – early Sunday morning around the Tan Track in central Melbourne – unsuccessfully attempting to shake out some of the muscle and joint pain from my 16 miler the day before. The Tan is an almost uninterrupted trail that measures just over 5k from our front door, all the way round and back home again. I do it all the time.

To get to the Tan I need to cross two roads, both of which have traffic lights and pedestrian signals at convenient spots. So it’s probably no surprise that this isn’t where a car got hit by me.

I was on the home stretch having just left the Tan to run down a very quiet residential street, picking up a bit of speed on a downhill. I’m running on a narrow pavement – a bit unusual as this road is so dead that often enough I just run in the road itself. It would have been a better idea to do that on this occasion.

The nose of a car pulls out of a concealed lane. There’s an imperceptibly small dip in the pavement, no lines painted on the road, no visibility for pedestrians or drivers. The bonnet appears and then a door and then I’m thinking “Well, this is happening.”

The driver sees me and slams on the brakes at the point at which my chest and arms splay out melodramatically across his car’s bonnet. The car comes to a stop as my right knee connects with the wing, which buckles slightly under the impact. I’ve more or less tripped over his car and broken my fall with my entire self. I stay there a fraction of a second to check whether I’m dead.

I’m not dead, but I am immensely surprised.

In fact I’m not even winded – my arm is a little uncomfortable as I landed heavily on it, but as I take a step away from the car and lean back on a convenient tree, trying to catch my breath, I remark that I really am totally fine. I’m remarking this to the driver as he lowers his window and we both look at each other, wondering who is going to shout at who.

In fact neither of us shouts. He wants to check I’m OK because that’s a good place to start and I want to apologise because I am British.

Luckily I really am OK. Perhaps a little shocked but nothing more than that. He drives off, I wave and jog the rest of the way home. Carefully.

I’d like to thank my brain, which realised early enough that my legs weren’t going to stop in time to avoid a collision, so worked out that spreading the impact as much as possible was the best alternative. For a fraction of a fraction of a second it considered swerving me out in front of the nose of the car – but if the driver hadn’t stopped then I would surely have broken a leg or hit the pavement, maybe catching an ankle or something under a front bumper and leaving myself with a large medical bill and a severe disinclination to boogie.

So what have I learned from this little escapade? Well, not much. I learned that this particular laneway is there, and that visibility is appalling, so it’s worth slowing down for a spot of green-cross-coding. I also learned what I have long-suspected: that being run over – or indeed running into cars – is literally no fun at all. More importantly, as I trotted the rest of the way home, heartrate at 30 or 40 thousand bpm, I resolved to generally be more careful. In an abstract sense, I’d like to get to 10,000 miles, or 20,000 miles, or none at all if the mood doesn’t take me, but I’d ideally like to get there on my own two feet.

Happy running, be safe out there,

Dave
(5 weeks, 6 days to 26.2)

2016 to date: km's 442, parkruns: 6, races: 1

Race Report - Brimbank Park Trail Half Marathon 2016

“The course is marked. But not very well.”

Nothing can better sum up the glorious chaos of the Brimbank Park Urban Trail Run than this perceptive but faintly concerning observation, which was announced with a sheepish grin during the pre-race briefing.

I say ‘the pre-race briefing’. In fact I’m pretty sure I heard this during the briefing for the marathon and the 50k ultra, which were both starting 30 minutes before the half marathon that I’d entered, which was itself 30 minutes before the 10k which would be followed 30 minutes later by the 5k and another 30 minutes after that, the 2k. That’s six races and five pre-race briefings if you’re counting.

With that many races spread across the day, using mostly the same trails, some with loops and laps and switchbacks, to be honest it would have been nigh on impossible to declare the course ‘well marked’. The pre-race instructions, issued by email, contained pages and pages of almost-identical maps, with ominous instructions like ‘runners are expected to have at least some knowledge of the route’ before offering navigation advice, in intense detail, based on a number of landmarks which didn’t seem to be marked anywhere. I’d done my best to understand where I was supposed to be going, and I’m glad I did. In an event with just 300 runners divided up between six distances, there is a very real chance that one could either get totally lost, or (perhaps worse) end up following someone in an entirely different race for a potentially very circuitous diversion.

These are the hallmarks of a race series that does exactly what every runner dreams of: inviting the world to come and have a go on your favourite routes. Trails+ has a shiny website and a headline sponsor in Garmin, but in the real world it’s the mission of one bloke, Brett Saxon, who set up the franchise to raise funds for teenage cancer charity CanTeen. When I stopped comparing it to a big corporate event and start appreciating it on those terms, it suddenly made a lot more sense.

Brimbank Park is a sizable and generally rather picturesque public reserve about half an hour north of Melbourne, defined by a deep gorge and a winding river and spoiled only by the inexplicable stringing of massive pylons across it and the occasional but equally massive noise pollution from nearby Melbourne airport.

After watching the ultrarunners and marathoners set off on their hapless quest to find the right number of kilometres to run, we killed some time mumbling about the weird humidity and pointing out our early favourites (the gent in fluorescent orange taking the marathon at a stern walk was mine). As ever, all too soon, it was time to get going.

Not particularly ready for the off.

I lined up with the other half-marathoners – all 57 of us – and, panicking, tried to set my watch while a local MP started an abrupt countdown. The blasted thing was still looking for satellites when I’d completed the first 400 metre loop, but before too much longer I had it going and started to settle into a rhythm, neatly ticking off the first few landmarks at around 5 minutes/km (a whisker over 8 minutes/mile, for those of you only just keeping up at the back). Despite its tiny size, the field was comprised of a real cross-section of the running world, and in the early km’s I watched people of all shapes and sizes shoot past me along the river trail. I wondered how many of them I might see again.

After a relatively comfortable run on undulating loose gravel, sometimes slipping into fine sand and other times firming up into rockier trail, I reached a bandstand at the 10km mark where a volunteer glanced at my light-blue half marathoner’s bib and declared ‘this is your turnaround!’. I grabbed a cup of water, thanked the volunteers and did as I was told. Feeling fresh and with 11km left to go, I headed back the way I’d come and started hunting down some other runners, overtaking a couple in the next few k’s. I flew past two guys I’d seen shoot off at the start, then overtook a bloke who I’d briefly chatted to in the early part of the race. I was feeling strong and ready to roll, and delighted in the weird experience of conducting hundreds of two-second conversations with runners heading in the opposite direction, still working on the out-and-back. On my way to the turnaround I’d only seen a few, suggesting I was relatively near the front of the field, but on the way back I saw the rest of the half-marathon field plus some of the marathoners and ultrarunners. Everyone assured everyone else that they were looking good and doing a great job and we all totally believed each other. It was great.

Things started going wrong for me at around 16km. It was a humid day and I was drenched in sweat, my vest clinging to my skin and feet blistering in soaking socks. I was running low on energy and the jelly snake I’d eaten was turning unpleasantly in my stomach. Weirdly I started getting goosebumps and feeling chills as well, maybe I was struggling with dehydration, or something else wasn’t regulating itself properly. I hauled myself along on the promise that it was really only 4 or 5, or was it 6km to go? My watch was 400m short, right, but does that mean I need it to say 20.7km or 21.5km? And is this definitely 16km? Have I gone too far? I’m very tired. This would be easier in miles.

An irritatingly well-marked sign turned the course away from the picturesque river path and up a truly massive and fairly grimy hill beneath a motorway overpass. I’d been hovering on a bloke’s shoulder for a while but he pulled away on the approach to the hill and disappeared up it at a fair lick, while I slumped my shoulders and resigned to a walk. It’s far from the biggest hill I’ve ever run but it was definitely placed at the worst point for my mood and wellbeing...

I trudged onwards. Two, then three, then five runners overtook me, including the three I’d caught just after the turnaround. We swapped a few murmured words of encouragement as a weird, humid wind picked up. I shivered some more and wondered whether this whole running thing was still working for me. It used to come so easily, you see. 

By now I was at the top of the hill and intermittently walking and running not very quickly along a ridge on one side of the gorge, scanning the valley below for the event village and the finish line. Was it still 6km to go? Had to be more like 4 now, or maybe even less? I ran on, cursing the very idea of races and finish lines and hills until an aid station came into view at a road crossing, where the course dropped down into the valley below and presumably on to the finish line. My watch said 19k. “No worries, only 4k to go!” chirped the volunteer. I said a bad word and mustered some energy to ride the downhill and into the bottom of the valley.

A few more confused and faintly miserable minutes of jogging later I started to hear the unmistakable chaos of a finish line, and allowed my spirits to be slightly lifted by the noise and excitement. I picked up the pace a little and ran past a few families and couples in the 5k, but quite clearly just out for a nice fundraising walk in the park rather than a race. I envied their decision making.

Moments later I was crossing the finish line, entirely on my own, and ran directly to the Crew Chief who – unable to help herself – had started volunteering by removing people’s timing chips from the back of their race numbers. She did mine for me, and I shook hands with one of the organisers as I accepted a medal and scanned the event village for somewhere that I might do a bit of collapsing in a heap.

Crossing in 1:52:12 (the clock is from the marathon start)

I lay down on a bench, soaked in sweat and still sweating profusely. The Crew Chief found me some water, then some fruit and miraculously a hot dog, which I greedily devoured along with a bottle of Gatorade and a mumbling narrative of self-pity, which she patiently absorbed in a ‘what do you expect me to do about that?’ sort of way. I didn’t expect anything of course, unless she happened to have thought of an excuse that had managed to elude me so far. She blamed the humidity, which I laid into with gusto.

Really very warm. Is this normal, Australia?

As runners continued to trickle over the finish line we slipped away back towards the car and a change of clothes for me – I wasn’t aware how I had done overall but I was confident that my services wouldn’t be required on a podium any time soon. I tried to seek out those few runners whom I’d chatted with along the way to congratulate them on their pacing, but I couldn’t find any of them so I settled for shaking Brett’s hand and slinking off. I resolved to race a lot smarter next time.

Next time is a bloody marathon, so I suppose I’d better.

Happy running

Dave

2016 to date: Km's - 347, parkruns - 6, races - 1

What's that in miles?

Kilometres. Ask me what the main cultural challenge has been since I’ve been running in Australia and it’s kilometres. Endless calculations that start with ‘well a 5k is 3.1 miles and a 4 minute k gives you a 20 minute parkrun which is about 6:30 a mile, and I’ve run 8k in the last 40 minutes so that must be, er, 5, no, yes, about 5 miles which is about 8 minutes per k, that can’t be right. 8 minutes per mile. Ace. Wait.’ By this point I’ve run another k and have to start again.

But the cultural challenges of the metric system are nothing, nothing compared to the climactic challenges of running Down Under.

When it’s cold you can always put on another layer. If it’s raining you can just get wet, or put on another layer. But when it’s already 30 degrees at 8am and the sun wants to aggressively cook your insides for some reason and there’s not a lick of shade and you’re a pasty white Englishman who’s spent the last decade living in Scotland, you suddenly realise that there aren’t enough layers to take off before you’re calculating km splits in the back of a police van because running in the nude is apparently not allowed in city centre parklands.

Yes, I’ve moved to Australia and it’s bloody brilliant. Melbourne, where the Crew Chief and I have settled is a runner’s playground and once you’ve navigated the massive road system and waited a million years for your traffic light to change there are endless trails, footpaths, parks, beaches, rivers and roads to explore.

I’ve become a morning person out of necessity – it’s too hot to run at lunchtime and my long-held favourite after-work training slot is often the hottest part of the day – so I’m out at 6.30am two or three times a week and am practically a regular at my local parkrun (I've been five times), which starts at 8am. I’ve also revived something of my University schedule and been running after 9pm some nights to try to beat the heat, with massive bats overhead, possums scurrying into bushes underfoot and the city skyline lit up in the middle distance.

28 degrees at the start line, 30 at the finish line. An arduous 23 minutes in between.

The problem will be when I need to run longer distances, because there just aren’t that many cool hours in the day at the moment. And that time is coming.

Yup I’ve registered for another marathon. After graciously bowing out of Yorkshire this year on the grounds that I, well, left the hemisphere in which it was being held, I’ve been scouting around for another. Actually Ben did the scouting for me and now here we are – planning for the 2016 Great Ocean Road Marathon. Yikes.

Except inexplicably the Great Ocean Road Marathon is 45km, not 42.2km like you could quite reasonably imagine. Strung out on a piece of extraordinary southern coastline – next stop Antarctica – I guess the GOR organisers have limited options for logical start and finish points so 45km it is. There’s a timing mat at 42.2 so you do get a proper marathon time, but the rules are clear; if you cross the 42.2km line but not the 45km line, you get a DNF for the whole race and no times at all. Those last couple of kms are basically non-negotiable and you’ve technically got to finish an ultra to qualify as having finished the marathon. Brutal.

I’m telling you. Kilometres. Not to be trusted.

Happy running

Dave

Miles: apparently 765, Kilometres: 1,231, races: 3, parkruns: 11

Race Report - Virgin London Marathon 2013

Some people criticise distance running for being a solitary sport. I learnt this weekend that they are wrong.

My Virgin London Marathon started with a bit of a wobble and ended in minor catastrophe. I’ll spare you any attempts at witty hyperbole about my race-week prep,  travel to London, race registration and the rest of my lengthy and exhaustive weekend, but I’ll paint you this picture:

Saturday night before the race, the Crew Chief and I are tucked away in a corner of a Pizza Express in Greenwich. I cannot eat and can barely speak as I am such a bag of nerves about finally running the VLM the following morning - a race I have been trying to enter since 2008. A plate of pasta and pesto and lightly grilled chicken is gently cooling in front of me.

I am ostensibly worried about my knees. They’ve been a little painful recently, but I had taken solace in the fact that the pain didn’t actually stop me running – in fact I had done my last 20 mile training run with a dull ache throughout. I’d seen a sports injury professional who specialises in knees just a few days before and he had given me some light treatment and a green light to run. But there are other worries. The enormity of the pacing challenge has hit home as I’m now in possession of the rucksack/harness that will hold the pacing flag. It’s not the pace I’m afraid of – I have run many thousands of miles and dozens of races including multiple marathons much faster. It’s the pressure of maintaining that pace consistently, of being accountable and reliable and watched and scrutinised. Barriers around the Cutty Sark and the naval college are being built up around us and my stomach fills with dread at the prospect of the task.

My psyche lurches in the opposite direction on the walk back to our comedy-basic hotel. I regain utmost confidence in my abilities and am certain that the race tomorrow will be easy. Just another marathon. Just another long run really. No biggie.

I drifted through race morning in a daze. People recognised the pacing kit and started asking me questions immediately: Where is pen 6? Where are the toilets? Where should I put my bag? Will you be running that pace exactly? WHERE is pen 6? It’s my first VLM and I don’t know the answers to these questions. The crowds are huge and buoyant and excited and I felt my enthusiasm swelling with them as we get into our pens. A portly runner in front of me was wearing a yellow T-shirt that read ‘Dave – Believe’. I took it as a sign. A very literal sign. This was going to be excellent. A 30 second silence before the off in memory of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings reminded me to count my blessings.

Mercifully I was not alone – Sam Murphy, the author of Runner’s World’s column Murphy’s Lore was also pacing this group. Between us we got the first few miles under control, all within seconds of our 10:18/mile target. There was little hope of us staying side-by-side as the field was densely packed and we seemed to be doing a lot of overtaking. I saw the Crew Chief as planned at mile 5 and progress was generally looking good. Our only confusion came when the race’s three starts (red, blue and green) merged, because there were pacers in each starting zone and we were running to very different chip times. Sam and I overtook a 4:45 pacer to much muttering, but there was no way for us to explain to the runners around us that we were both right. But I understood their confusion and sympathised – in the sense that all I could do was to keep banging out 10:18s as best I could.

Elsewhere on the course I was privileged and grateful to see old friends cheering me on. Ben, Jess, Sarah, Ed, Tom, Erin, Heather, Adam, Louise, John, Bernie (also Rach, Matt, Ross and Thea probably, though I don’t remember seeing you) – each a friendly face picked out of the monumental crowd that made the whole thing seem worthwhile. The Crew Chief saw me more than I caught sight of her, and became rather more acquainted with the tube than any non-Londoner would really want to on a Sunday. I don’t think I’ve ever run a race with so many friends out supporting, and it changed my mindset and attitude for the better. They reminded me that people believe in my ability to do these things.

But I was struggling. Nothing seemed to click. I remember seeing a sign at mile 9 saying ‘17 miles to go’ and silently despairing at the prospect. The only thing keeping me focussed was the relentless pursuit of 10:18 minute miles, something that Sam and I were still achieving. We rolled over halfway perhaps 10 seconds early.

It wasn’t until around mile 15 that I had to concede that I was suffering, and, more dangerously, slowing down. Lurching to a fence I stretched my thighs and wrenched a gel out of my rucksack. I yanked the knee supports off my knees, as I felt they were limiting circulation to my thighs, and set off again, feeling renewed and refreshed.

I caught up to within 20 metres of Sam but found myself in a congested part of the race, content to hold my place just behind her. The field hadn’t thinned out and in places spectators were spilling onto the road, narrowing the course. I felt a little closed-in and conspicuous with a giant flag on my back. The pacing gear was generally good and relatively lightweight, but the flag was a sail in the wind and a nuisance in tight spaces. As the day heated up I sweated like a turkey at Christmas and the straps started to rub painfully on my neck. I thought of other things. Oddly, I struggled to enjoy or appreciate the crowds and the sights. This is what I had come to London for: a big city marathon with all the trimmings, but for some reason I couldn’t appreciate it. Tower Bridge didn’t even do it for me. All I wanted was for it to be over, preferably in exactly 4:30.

As the pain set in and 17 then 18 miles rolled around I lost some self-awareness, instead focussing on the rhythm of my pace and the number of miles left to go – now in single figures. I recited mantras and zoned out the noise of the crowd. Tough though it was, I reckoned I could stay in this blinkered existence for the next 8 miles. I felt like things were going well.

Things were not going well. The Crew Chief was waiting in the crowd around mile 18-19, though I wasn’t looking at the crowds and didn’t see her.  She burst into tears when she saw me, mournfully hauling myself through Canary Wharf with grim determination and apparently a pronounced limp.

The next thing I know I am leaning on a metal fence, arms locked straight and thighs stretching, with my eyes closed and head down. A number of people – I couldn’t say how many – are asking me a lot of questions. I tell them that I’m fine and will be continuing shortly. My legs and the people disagree.

Next I am in a wheelchair, eyes still closed, a mixture of relief and shame pounding my head along with three letters: DNF. Did Not Finish. So many people were expecting something of me in this race. Runners’ World. My contact there, Kerry McCarthy, who has been ridiculously generous to me professionally. Sam, the other pacer. My brother. The Crew Chief. Christ, she would be unimpressed by this. All those people out supporting. All my friends out supporting. Hundreds – if not thousands - of people wanting to run 4:30 who were looking to me for some sort of expertise. The 450,000 readers of this blog. My 2.2 million Twitter followers. My parents. My colleagues. Myself.

I lay on a stretcher inside under an awning erected on one side of a St John’s Ambulance. The paramedic took my temperature, looked at the thermometer and shook his head. He got a different thermometer and took it again. I was 41.1 degrees Celsius. Stripped to the waist, they covered me in soaking wet blankets in an effort to cool me down. My legs cramped up and I could barely move anything from the neck down without huge pain – I suddenly realised how painful my back was, presumably from the rucksack. Painkillers and electrolyte replacements and more cold wet things. Attempts at banter from my part were probably delirious ramblings.

After 40 minutes my temperature had gone down to 40.2. Over the next hour it quickly dropped down to a normal, safe, human temperature. The ambulance crew looked less worried and administered two cups of coffee and three Jaffa cakes, which I devoured greedily. My sister-in-law Erin was the first one able to answer her phone so she made it over to see me first, and went more or less straight back out to buy me some dry clothes. The Crew Chief arrived not long after, tearful, relieved and livid and relentlessly practical as always.

Unbelievably, my mobile rang. A doctor was on the line, telling me not to worry. Strange, I thought, I’ve got a doctor right here saying something similar. Turns out he was calling from the medical station at mile 22, where my brother Nick, sorry, my identical twin Nick, had suffered exactly the same outcome and was exactly the same temperature. Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. Erin dashed off to attend to her second Haines twin emergency of the hour, and left Linds to mop up the pieces of my VLM attempt. They would later emerge and get on the sweeper bus at the back of the race, left to endure the longest and slowest bus ride in London. Nick advises against this if you ever find yourself in such a situation. He also later reminded me that in the latter stages of a marathon, 'DNF' really means 'Did Nothing Fatal'.

A complicated and expensive logistical exercise to get back to the airport in one piece and with all the right bags was totally, utterly saved by Louise’s selfless help in moving all our junk around London. Unable to offer suggestions or make any objections, I did as I was told as Lou and the Crew Chief installed me in a hotel near London City airport for an hour’s sleep before our flight, while between them they picked up suitcases from Waterloo East and returned the blasted rucksack to a hotel in St James.

After speaking to my parents in Qatar and my sister in Southampton, I put a note on Facebook explaining what had happened, unable to face the prospect of fielding dozens of individual queries. My phone palpitated with messages of condolence and love and support over the next few hours. It might have been the exhaustion but I burst into tears reading them, in the middle of a hotel lobby. No-one was disappointed. No-one cracked a joke. Everyone wanted me to feel better, not to worry, to look forward to next time, that they knew I would bounce back shortly. One person said I was an inspiration. My dad said he was proud of me. The Crew Chief said she loved me.

Running is not a solitary sport. I promise never to forget that.

Happy running

Dave

2013 to date: miles run - 412.14, races: 2 and a bit, parkruns: 1, miles biked: 18, metres swum: 500

My Major headache

One of my wildly overambitious running goals recently became even more ambitious.

Like many runners, I identified that I would love to complete all five of the World Marathon Majors, a group of five international races which form a two-year rolling competition: London, New York, Chicago, Boston and Berlin. For elite athletes, there is a huge prize pot for those who score highest across the races during the two years; this in addition to the prizes awarded at each individual race. For the rest of us, the Majors represent the biggest, the best, the most prestigious marathons in the world and just completing them would be a fantastic accomplishment. 132 of the world’s greatest miles on just five (admittedly non-consecutive) days.

But yet another layer of difficulty has just been added to the challenge by the introduction of a sixth Major: Tokyo. We’re up to 158.2 miles in six days. The accomplishment of running six marathons is one thing, but getting to the start line of these races is the real headache. The original five majors are fiendishly difficult and/or frighteningly expensive to get into as a non-elite runner, and Tokyo will be no exception. Let’s investigate…

London – Access is relatively easy if you’re prepared and able to raise the minimum £1,600 typically asked for a charity place, but for those of us less confident in achieving such figures, the prospects are fairly bleak. The ballot for general entry takes over 100,000 applications every year, for an undisclosed number of places which must be well below 10,000. I have been rejected four times, and my place in the 2013 race was guaranteed only by a well-placed phone call. More info to follow…

New York City – Again, those with the dollars can get in with relative ease. Companies like Sports Tours International and 2:06 Events usually offer packages for the weekend – indeed as a non-US runner this is pretty much the only means of getting a place. You can search for yourself, but I think you’ll struggle to find a package that will leave you much change from £1,200. The race entry component of that fee is around £300.

Chicago – general entry, but a lightning-fast sellout.

Boston – runners require an age-related qualifying time from a previous marathon, which for me would be sub-3:10. In reality to guarantee entry I would need a sub-3:00 marathon, as faster runners are given priority. This of course is part of the race’s appeal, but means I will most likely be doing Boston as my last Major, if at all.

Berlin – general entry, but again sells out in a matter of minutes.

Which leaves Tokyo. A new Major, in fact a very new marathon only established as a mass-participation event in 2008. Staggeringly, the organisers receive 300,000 applications to run every year (which will only increase) and are able to offer ‘only’ 36,000 places.

So if you, like me, fancy collecting medals from each of the - now six - World Marathon Majors, I would start saving (for entry and plane fares), start crossing your fingers and start running really, really fast…

Happy running

Dave

2012 to date: miles run - 448.3, miles biked - 106.1, metres swum - 3950, surfing hours - 2, races - 5

You want a Legacy?

Right you lot – you’ve had your fun. The Olympics facilitated your gorging on evening and weekend TV, generated your boss’s good-natured tolerance of streaming events during work hours, and provided endless hours of gasps and cheers and tears and triumph. And now it’s your turn to contribute.

I hear a lot of people asking – nay demanding – to know what LOCOG intend to do about London 2012’s Legacy. These people say it with a capital ‘L’ to emphasise that this Legacy is Very Important to them. And LOCOG do their best to explain what they will do with their facilities and venues, how they will make sporting equipment and expertise available, and put their athletes in front of cameras heavily laden with medals and white-toothed grins. Meanwhile Mr Cameron does his best to insist that money will go in large volumes to the right places and that selling-off sports pitches isn’t a thing that’s happening at all. They are pleading with you to believe in their vision of Legacy and their capacity to deliver it.

I put it to you, however, that this Legacy is your responsibility as much as Coe’s and Cameron’s. You have been inspired by sport because it turned up in your living room for a fortnight. Now you have to go out and find it. If you want sport to be a part of your life or your children’s lives, then do something to make it so – Jess Ennis isn’t going to pop round with a set of hurdles and a javelin to teach you the heptathlon. Greg Rutherford isn’t going to suddenly leap into your garden with his coach’s whistle and a measuring tape. You are going to need to build on your own momentum. Here are a few suggestions as to how you can do that:

Go and see some sport

If you missed out on getting tickets for the Olympics, then why not go and see something else? Professional and high-level amateur sport happens every week in this country - your options really aren't limited to Wimbledon and endless football matches. I’m going to the EMC tests at Murrayfield in November, which were cheap. I’m planning to finally get to the Edinburgh International Cross-Country in January, which is free. If I was desperate to see Olympic mainstays like athletics/track & field, there are endless events up and down the country, including massive inter-county championships – here’s a list. Every Olympic sport will have public, usually quite cheap events that you can go to and have an awesome time at. What's stopping you?

Ambitious.

Sign up for a race

I say this all the time – but if you want running motivation then put some money where your mouth is and sign up for a race. Incidentally, you could do Survival of the Fittest for Venture Trust, which would be cool. Or why not run an event that your local running/athletics club is putting on? If you usually run the big, famous races, why not try something unusual and local? Or if you’re short of pennies then go to parkrun – it’s FREE, there’s one near where you live and I’ve told you to do it already.

Get behind the Commonwealth Games

Glasgow 2014, baby. Here we come.

Join a club

This is hypocritical – I haven’t been in a sports club since University – but you may find that joining your local athletics, football, rugby, cycling, hockey, triathlon, shooting, swimming, canoeing or any-other club will give you much easier routes to participation and a new social circle to boot.

Take up something new

One of the most bizarre and wonderful parts of the Olympics for me is watching athletes compete at the highest level in events which I was only dimly aware of. This should be the moment that Britain recruits a generation of talented handballers, finds swathes of future BMX champs and hundreds of people passionate about that weird 8-man kayak thing. I hate to think of the number of people who didn’t shine at the mainstream sports which were offered at school, who became labelled (and therefore learnt to think of themselves) as ‘not sporty’.  I saw a great tweet by Jeremy Vine that said “Facts that have emerged from the Olympics: Britain’s not rubbish. Football is not the only sport. The Queen can do jokes.” – why not dedicate yourself to a minority event? You might be naturally gifted at it. And, by contrast and in a ‘just saying’ kind-of way, Britain is pretty rubbish at football.

Jog on

I think I may have said this somewhere before. But I mean this in its broadest possible sense - leave the car at home and walk into town, buy a bike and use it to commute, go for a swim, hike up a reasonably big hill. Do literally anything to keep moving and active and energised. 

You want a legacy? Make it happen. The time is now.

Happy running

Dave

2012 to date: miles run - 282, miles biked - 69.2, metres swum - 2350, races - 3

15 things about the Olympics

How I will be watching the Olympics.

1. Very much on purpose. I already have a plan for where and when I’ll be watching the major excitement, which for me is the 5,000m, 10,000m, marathon, triathlon, wheelchair rugby and a couple of other finals. Very exciting times.
2. Entirely by mistake. I’m expecting to catch the best of the random other stuff by accidentally flicking on the BBC or Channel 4 whilst looking for something else, only to catch the final of the women’s super-heavy-weight-lifting or a mad definitely-not-sprint finish in the men’s racewalk. This is definitely the best bit of the Games being on 24/7. How else would anyone see the modern pentathlon?
3. Not at all. Specifically, I am deliberately avoiding football. Football is not a proper Olympic sport. There is already too much football in the world. In fact as punishment for the ongoing farce of allowing it as an Olympic sport I am cancelling the next football World Cup and replacing it with perhaps a javelin/shot-putt showcase.
4. At work, online. I have no qualms whatsoever about this. It’s the Olympics.
5. With booze. There’s something wonderful about watching finely toned athletes at the top of their game whilst swigging another beer. Although 5 is somewhat incompatible with 4.

Some predictions. If I get them all right you have to buy me a small gift.

1. Mo Farah to win the 10,000m but take 3rd or lower in the 5,000.
2. Paula Radcliffe to run a decent marathon but miss out on the medals.
3. Usain Bolt to settle for silver in the 100m, possibly beaten by Blake.
4. A 1-2 in the triathlon from the Fabulous Brownlee Brothers. One or both to try to ascend the podium with a Yorkshire flag.
5. Richard Whitehead to clean up in the Paralympics, probably setting a couple of new ORs or WRs.

Desperate hopes

1. Team GB to finish top-three in the medal table
2. No stupidity from hippies, nudists, terrorists, naysayers, Liberal Democrats or tax-evaders
3. No major embarrassments of infrastructure or planning.
4. A successor to Ernie the Eagle & Eric the Eel
5. A new OR for the marathon (either/both men’s and/or women’s)

I am almost definitely not allowed to put this here.

Let the good times roll.

Happy Olympics.

Dave

2012 to date: miles run - 279.7, miles biked - 69.2, metres swum - 2350, races - 3

Race Report - Edinburgh Marathon 2012

Hot. Very hot. Hotter than the surface of the sun on quite a warm day indeed.

These are the words which followed us around the Edinburgh marathon and the few panicked days beforehand. Forget the abysmal training regime, the injuries, the sleepless night, the fact that our entire running and supporting crew had their minds elsewhere, it was the heat that really kicked us in the face all the way to Gosford House and most of the way back. But what a kicking. What a run. What a day. What a weekend.

Allow me to introduce the players in this story. You should definitely know the Crew Chief by now – she cheers like an American, crews like a trooper and is generally awesome in many ways. You may have heard of Neil Gray: he was a crucial part of my dress rehearsal disaster, he took a cool photo of some surprising zebras, and about a hundred years ago was an international standard age-group sprinter for Orkney and Scotland.  His fiancée Karlie Robinson is his own personal crew – and pacer, as it turns out. Finally the inimitable Alex B Dixon, a man of boundless talent and energy, who was there for my first ever Edinburgh marathon relay back in 2008, and was there for the whole thing yesterday too. In a supporting role was Rebecca Schmidt, herself a marathoner but today acting in a professional capacity, cheering from one of the Barnardo’s stands. Neil, Alex and I were running, and Linds, Karlie and Rebecca were crewing. We were all to be very hot.

 _________________

I’d like to write this post purely about the race, but that doesn’t feel remotely possible. Late on Saturday night a mutual friend of us all passed away in sudden, tragic and unexpected circumstances. The shock and devastation sat incongruously, impossibly, miserably alongside a glorious summer’s day and the pre-race marathon nerves. None of us slept well, and in the morning I would have happily traded anything to be waking up without that news. I lay in bed for an hour or so as the early morning light crept into the room, too sad and angry to imagine running a marathon.

But a marathon is what we had signed up for, and no good would come of us abandoning our endeavours. No-one spoke a word of dissent as the early morning preparations unfolded. Perhaps I was the only one who doubted whether we should be doing this. Perhaps everyone did.

_________________

Our plan started to falter immediately. Living just a couple of miles from the start line, I guessed that we could easily call a cab to shuttle us from the flat to the off. Amazingly, one or two other marathoners had the same idea, and as the clock ticked to 9:20 (for a 9:50 start!) there was still no taxi to be seen, evidently busy ferrying others around. We gave a small sigh at our atrocious failure and started to walk there, eventually hailing a cab for the last mile or so, and arriving at the start line with about eight minutes to spare.

Back when I registered for this race, hot on the heels of my 3:49 PB in ‘the race even marathoners fear’, I had optimistically put 3:40 as my target time for ‘the fastest marathon in the UK’. Seven months later, with a wrecked ankle, an aching oedema and having run less than 200 miles in training, I knew I would be nowhere near that so positioned myself at the very back of the London Road start. Neil and Alex, who had predicted finishes of 3:59 and 4:05 respectively, were starting from Regent Road, and it was for this reason that I loitered outside Holyrood Palace, less than a mile into the race, waiting for Neil to arrive. For those few early miles together nothing could have been better. A beautiful day, out for a run, with my mate and 12,000 others, having some headspace to try to unpick the sad events of the past 24 hours. Marathoning isn’t therapy, it’s just time, space, and the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other. Which is what we needed.

We ran to mile three together, already sweating heavily through our factor 50 sun cream, where Neil left me to pursue my run/walk strategy. I planned to walk the first 30-60 seconds of every mile, running thereafter, in the hope of staving off serious fatigue until later in the race. Which sort-of worked. Around mile 5 Alex overtook me too, and I kept him in sight for the next four miles or so, letting him slip away as I walked then catching up to within a few feet on the runs. Crowd support was much better than in previous years, and even early on people were out in their gardens launching sprays of water across the course. No hosepipe ban for us.

Of course, as I’ve mentioned before, at mile 7 or 8 you really aren’t in Edinburgh any more, instead running through small coastal towns in East Lothian. By the time I reached Linds and Karlie’s cheer station in Musselburgh, just before mile 10, I felt good and strong, ready for more. Unpressured by time or racing, I took in the luxury of stopping to chat to them, wolfing down Haribo and reassuring them that the heat wasn’t getting to me just yet. However, the blistering was. Though I had no complaints from my awful ankle, the balls of my feet were starting to blister. At mile 11 I ran into a first aid tent, and with very little haste a well-meaning but possibly rather simple volunteer taped some padding to the underside of my feet. I reapplied socks and shoes, and wondered how on earth I was going to cover another 15 miles on these uncomfortable things...

With very little shade and having already stopped three times, I thought it best to push on for a few miles and make some good progress. But by the halfway point, clocking around 2:08, I was starting to feel the energy sapped from my muscles and was having difficulty balancing between taking on water and staying cool with it. I did not want hyponatremia for my trouble. But the heat was serious, and I probably saw at least 10 runners being tended to at the side of the road, some on drips, others with oxygen. I counted my blessings and thought of other things. For a mile or two it looked like a haar was coming in off the sea, but sadly it never materialised and we continued to roast in the sun. I struggled to maintain enthusiasm and focus as I passed such delightful landmarks as Cockenzie power station and bland featureless roads, but unconditionally adored the enthused crowd support in the pockets of civilisation, and sporadically remembered why I love this sport so much.

Between 16 and 18 I gradually felt my strength rebuilding, and on one of the switchbacks, impossibly, I saw that Neil was behind me by around 40 seconds. Enthused by this miraculous turnaround I pushed on into the grounds of Gosford House, where I paused briefly to give a TV interview to a woman who told me it was ‘only 6 miles to go!’, which was an outrageous lie. I suspect that I may have been too rude for transmission. Some small respite from the sun came in a wooded path, and it was here that I stopped for a while to help a woman who had tripped over her feet and landed nastily, cutting her knee and hand. I walked with her for a while as she got over the shock. We ambled and talked and eventually she disappeared back into the crowd. I saw her briefly a little later as she sailed past me looking strong and determined. I was genuinely delighted for her.

And from here, it was a struggle. I ran/walked/hobbled/walked/power-walked/ran in intermittent bursts, going as fast as my cramping, popping muscles would allow. I chatted to some people, remarked that it was really rather warm and generally enjoyed the atmosphere and banter. I made a point of running past the bloody awful power station, wanting it out of my sight as quickly as possible, but otherwise chose my pace according to hills, company and the whim of the universe. It felt like it took weeks but eventually, by some miracle, I loped into mile 25 where Linds was waiting for me. Karlie had left with Neil about 10 minutes earlier, incredibly, pacing him to the finish line in her flip-flops. With two bags and two folding chairs to carry, the Crew Chief declined to pace me home, so I jogged as much of the last mile as I could manage before finally turning into the park and the finish line, crossing in a spectacular PW of 4:44:15.

Me, Alex and Neil with our impossibly enormous medals.

Despite the trademark Edinburgh Marathon disappointment of the reunion areas and general finish logistics, we eventually found each other. Neil finished in a solid 4:33, and Alex ran a stonking 4:14. Both will improve massively on a cooler day, and I look forward to writing about their next accomplishments one day soon. We lay on the grass under a cloudless sky and thought about things. After a small period of regrouping, swapping war stories, stretching and admiring sunburn we hauled ourselves up a 900-mile hill to the shuttle bus departure point. We joined the back of a queue of 1.2 million people and eventually got a bus back to the city, and another cab back home. We talked about our day, and our weekend, and what it meant to us. We laughed. We had a lot of food and a small amount of beer, and eventually our day was done. I was asleep just before 10pm.

Never again will I run a marathon without adequate training. I enjoyed this experience and the opportunity to take time over things, and being released from time pressure meant that my head was clearer to just have fun with it. But the constant feeling that I could have done better was nagging me all the way round, if only I had done some training.

Quite separately, painful thoughts affected all of us throughout the day, and in a way I took strength from an ongoing determination to make this whole mad enterprise worthwhile. Neil and I agreed later that if we were going to run a marathon with a lost friend in our thoughts, then we should bloody well do it properly. DNF was never an option.

Happy running, friends. And rest in peace Steven.

Dave


2012 to date: miles run - 215.2, miles biked - 52.2, metres swum - 1150, races - 3

Marathon Cheering Signs

There's nothing like rounding an anonymous corner in a poorly-supported section of a big race to be confronted by a wild crowd cheering and screaming and brandishing hilarious signs. The kind of signs that make you smile, possibly laugh, strike up a conversation and remember that you used to belong to the human race. They are always a sublime blend of utter adulation, cruel mockery and shameless flirting, which to be honest sounds better than some nights out I've been on... I remembered this pleasing literary oeuvre a few weeks ago when the #marathoncheeringsigns hashtag was producing some absolute belters on Twitter.

Here are a few of my favourites, in no particular order (photos stolen from all over the place, sorry!):

All aboard the Pain Train!

I don’t even know you, but you’re my hero!

Looking for a man with great endurance.

From www.carlybananas.com

Why do all the pretty ones run away?

It’s not sweat, it’s your fat crying.

Good thing it’s not 26.3 miles because THAT would be insane.

From http://winnieyeo.blogspot.com 

Bet you wish Phidippides died at mile 20!

Cemetery ahead, look alive!

Worst. Parade. Ever.

From  http://3rdhouseparty.typepad.com 

Toenails are overrated.

Some day you won’t be able to do this. Today is not that day.

I got up really early to make this sign!

From http://femmebot.tumblr.com 

Your feet only hurt because you’re kicking so much ass!

Chuck Norris never ran a marathon.

I thought this was a 5k!

From www.andherlittledogtoo.com

Bet this seemed like a good idea 6 months ago!

Today is your ‘some day’.

You paid £45 for THIS!?

Happy cheering

Dave

2012 to date: miles run - 45.27, miles biked: 15.4, metres swum: 750

1087 miles: my 2011 in running shoes

What started with a broken promise ended with mixed emotions. I knew that my 2011 in running shoes would be the biggest, toughest and hopefully the most rewarding yet, but I wasn’t ready for how it would finish.

Pivoting on the San Francisco Marathon, all my training, racing and writing was focussed on getting into the best possible shape to run one of the most brutal road marathons in the world. My madly overambitious plans to start with the Lochaber Marathon were sensibly sidelined in favour of the usual crop of half-marathons and parkruns in the first half of the year, including a brilliant weekend in Campbeltown for the MoKRun.

My annual tradition of PB’ing in Alloa despite (or perhaps because of) being violently sick entered its third year, modified only slightly this year by a rather more exciting end to the day. But before both of those was the last-minute slapdash effort at the Meadows ‘Marathon’ in Edinburgh, which of course was only really a half marathon, run over seven laps of the Meadows in Edinburgh.  It may interest you to know that the organisers are planning a full length-marathon for 2012, covering a soul-sucking fourteen lap course (details here). You won’t be seeing me there.

San Francisco loomed large and arrived on my doorstep at the end of July. With the miles in the bank, hills in my legs and a Union Jack on my chest I was ready to run the best race of my life, and was rewarded with a hugely satisfying 3:49 PB. I’ve wasted enough of your time already on eulogising about this incredible race – go back and read it all again if you’re interested.

I came back from the USA with an enormous medal and two more goals on the horizon. My commitment to run the Great North Run for the Alzheimer’s Society, coupled with my wild over-commitment to run it barefoot, made for a superb combination of a world-class event and another tough challenge complete. Two weeks later I toed my final start-line of the year, accompanying the one and only Ben A. Nicholson around the Loch Ness Marathon, to complete my fourth lifetime 26.2.

 It was a good year for meeting heroes. I met round-the-world runner and adventurer Rosie Swale Pope in Campbeltown before the MokRun, then elite ultramarathoner Michael Wardian and prolific marathoner Dane Rauschenberg in San Francisco, and finally world 5,000m champion and British Olympic hopeful Mo Farah in Newcastle before the Great North Run.  If you’re interested, Michael and Dane were the friendliest. Rosie was busy at a book signing but very kind. I think I might have annoyed Mo – he was out for a drink with some mates. Sorry Mo.

Mike Wardian (after winning the SF Marathon)

Mo Farah

I was delighted to publish articles in Runner’s World UK again this year, reviewing the Alloa Half Marathon, the MoKRun and the San Francisco Marathon.  RW has a readership of almost 400,000, which, as I’ve said before, is almost as many people as read this blog (pfft!).  I very much look forward to publishing more in future. It was also a joy to watch this blog's readership grow and diversify - thank you for sharing it as widely as you have, it means a great deal to me.

Perhaps best of all was watching others achieve and succeed. It was a pleasure to run with my brother the day of his wedding, a delight to see that my sister completed her first 10k, an honour to accompany (and eventually be beaten by) Ben Nicholson in his first marathon. I took a Dalmatian and her owner to the top of Arthur’s Seat. I trained with future marathon world champ Megan Crawford, when she slowed down enough for me to keep up. I even coaxed the Crew Chief out on one or two occasions. I ran in Scotland, England, Portugal, California and New York, covering a total of 1087 miles and wearing out two-and-a-half pairs of running shoes. Here are the final stats:

miles run: 1087, parkruns: 6, races: 6, 

miles biked: 159, metres swum: 1225

I had a great year.

Except the hernia bit. That was shit, and still is.  Not long after the Loch Ness Marathon I started experiencing a great deal of pain whilst running.  By early November it had become unbearable, so I hastened to my GP. She thought it was probably a hernia, and ordered a surgical consultation (which still hasn’t happened, by the way).  In the meantime my running has dwindled to almost nothing, and at times it seems genuinely impossible to think that I have trained for and completed two marathons and four half marathons this year, as well as a few hundred miles on the bike. At times, genuinely, I can barely walk.

Swings and roundabouts, eh?

Happy New Year

Dave

2012 to date: miles - 3 (painfully)

The disastrous hyper-evolution of running shoes

When I bought my first pair of running shoes, it was a complete revelation. Never had a pair of shoes fitted better. Ever. Never had I spent so much time carefully choosing what I would put on my feet. They were miraculous. My knees felt bouncier, my ankles felt stronger, there was no pain anywhere. It was magnificent.

But it didn’t last. I got them in December 2008, with a view to using them for the 2009 Paris Marathon. They performed wonderfully on the day, but afterwards I could feel them becoming less effective. Running shoes have a useful life of anything from 4-700 road miles, depending on who you believe. Less still if you use them on tracks or trails or for general day-to-day wear. After that they lose their bounce, the soles becoming hard and unyielding, jarring rather than dampening impact. When I wore my original shoes to climb Ben Nevis in June 2009, I knew they were knackered, and binned them shortly afterwards.

It was when I made to replace them that I learnt a ridiculous truth – it is nigh on impossible to buy the same shoes twice. Just 6 months after buying the first pair, I walked back into the same running shop, with same feet, and said that my Asics had been great and I’d like exactly the same again, please. No chance, they replied, because good news! Asics have improved them!

Well I was excited. The old ones were fantastic, so the new version would probably be extraordinary. I tried them on, went for a cursory run on the shop’s treadmill, and, fairly satisfied, paid for them. Some weeks later, when they were broken in and should be performing at their best, I decided that they were quite good but not actually as good as the old version, which was a shame. I wish they’d just left them alone.

This routine has since been played out another half dozen times. Every time I need a new pair, I am forced to experiment with something different. If I dislike them, I have to start again from scratch. If I like them, I always attempt to replace them like-for-like when they’ve reached the end of their efficacy, and every single time I am disappointed.

Out with the old...

I know what you’re thinking- when I find the right shoe I should just buy a lifetime supply, right? Well at £75-90 a pair, and me needing at least two pairs a year, you’re talking about nearly thirteen grand’s worth of shoes (assuming I’m still running marathons age 84). That’s just silly.

No, the real fault lies at the over-analysed feet of the shoemakers, ‘reinventing’ the market at regular intervals to create demand for their latest innovation in spongy plastic and something new for their franchises and high-street stockists to display.

This week, I bought new shoes. My Asics 3030s have done two marathons and a good few hundred other miles besides, and they are showing their wear and tear. But as usual neither of my three local running shops stocked them, instead offering ‘similar’ shoes which were variously uncomfortable and significantly more expensive. So screw you, running franchises. I bought a pair of 3030s online, discounted because they’re end-of-line. Victory!

Next up: becoming a full-time barefoot runner. That’ll show ‘em.

Happy running

Dave

2011 to date: miles: 1053.91, parkruns: 6, races: 6, miles biked: 155, metres swum: 1225

History Stands

Two or three years ago, some paper-pusher in the Department for Education or some other such administrative body in charge of exams decided that it was time for another rule change. Successive UK governments like to fiddle with our exam structures every now and then to put their stamp on education, and usually I couldn’t care less. But this one was different.

In summer 2005 I collected my A-level certificates, ridiculously satisfied to have achieved the highest possible set of results: four As. My school could offer a maximum of four A-levels per student, so I chose four subjects I enjoyed and was good at, worked hard at those four and got good grades in all of them. My CV would forever proclaim this clean sweep of school-age academic testing. I may not have collected any shiny plastic trophies, but academically I was top dog.

Until that paper-pusher moved the goalposts and added an A* grade to the A-level scoring system.

Now my CV looks good, but not great. I ‘only’ got As. Hypothetically, when the current cohorts of A-level students filter into the job market, their performances could be unfairly measured against mine. I did the best I could within the rules I was given, but now the rules have changed I’m retrospectively disadvantaged. How is this fair?

It isn’t. But it doesn’t matter. I have an MA now, so my A-levels are pretty irrelevant. Hopefully anyone looking critically at my CV would have some awareness of the rule change, if they were to care at all.  But imagine if a comparable scenario was played out on an international scale, affecting achievements which are recorded in history books and have huge sums of money associated to them. Imagine the greatest athletes in history being downgraded by retrospective rule changes. Sadly, right now, we don’t have to imagine.

The IAAF, athletics’ governing body, recently changed the rules for female distance records. Essentially, world records will only be certified in women-only races, on the basis that mixed races or races with male pacemakers offer some sort of ill-defined advantage, loosely generalising that women run faster in the presence of men. Aside from the fact that this is pretty sexist and to my mind based on flawed logic, there’s an even greater injustice afoot.

Outrageously, the rule is being applied retrospectively, disqualifying Paula Radcliffe’s phenomenal marathon world record of 2:15:25, achieved in London in 2003, and establishing her merely amazing 2:17:42 in London in 2005 as the official world record. Paula ran the 2003 race with pacemakers (whom she hadn’t asked for), although consciously not running behind them (which might have been considered drafting, entirely legal but not Paula’s style), at the pace she wanted to achieve (without giving the pacemakers any instructions).

Paula ran 2:15 with her own legs, in her own way, in a world-beating and record-shattering time. She strived and sweated and worked harder than anyone else on the planet to do it. The IAAF, on the other hand, whom I imagine to be cooped up in some gleaming corporate headquarters, have ruled that her time wasn’t achieved according to some new standards they invented eight years later, and so are quite happy to wipe it from the record books, belittling the months and years of work it represents. It’s worth noting, of course, that Paula is still the world record holder, in fact she has run the three fastest female marathon times ever, including the disqualified 2:15.

Check out the 'News' section of www.paularadcliffe.com

Looking forward, this is bad news for women’s marathoning. Relatively few women-only races or women-only starts exist, limiting the potential for faster times. Berlin is a prime example – the men’s world record has repeatedly been broken there, but it doesn’t have a women-only start. There will never be a female world record achieved on what is possibly the fastest marathon course in the world. This will create a messy two-tier system of ‘world best’ and ‘world record’ times, possibly subdivided again to exclude courses like Boston which don’t meet IAAF qualifying standards of elevation and layout. A cynic might say that this is a ploy to push up the standards of IAAF championships and the Olympics - races which are usually run for podium places, not necessarily for fast times...

Paula and Nike are mounting a campaign against this decision, with a massive groundswell of public support from the running community and beyond. I have no hesitation in adding my voice to it. 

Do you think I could convince them to have a go at the A-level thing too?

History stands.

Dave

2011 to date: miles: 1023.17, parkruns: 6, races: 6, miles biked: 155, metres swum: 1225

Home Turf

2012, by and large, is supposed to be a money-saving year. In September the Crew Chief and I will be buying dinner for 110 of our closest friends, then jetting off on some sort of exotic holiday in pursuit of sun, sea and upgrades – so until then we will be saving.
 
2012 won’t be a year, therefore, in which I hop on a plane to fly halfway around the world for a marathon. In fact for a while I thought I wouldn’t be running a marathon at all, instead focussing on shorter distances and building up some core strength and speed. But after just a small amount of soul-searching, I can’t bear the thought of leaving it until 2013 to run marathon number five...
 
So I’ve decided to run a 26.2 that starts less than two miles from my front door: The Edinburgh Marathon.
 
Yes, I know, I’ve complained about it before. There’s a lot wrong with this race, some of it fundamental, and going by previous form it seems unlikely that it’s going to change any time soon. But in the spirit of austerity I’m thinking that running a race which incurs no travel costs and no accommodation costs, no time off work and no peripheral sightseeing expense is a Good Thing.
 
In fact the more I think about it the more I like the idea of running a ‘home’ marathon. I have seven and a half months to prepare for it, plenty of time to explore every inch of the course and learn every turn and undulation (although I’ve run the first half of this race during the relay, I’ve yet to experience what the route is like after 13 miles). The 10am start means I don’t need to be up for breakfast until 8, don’t need to leave the flat until 9.15 at the earliest. Assuming a half decent run and some post-race cunning, I could be back home with a frosty beer by mid-afternoon.
 
A half-decent run...
 
Yes, alright, my interest was piqued by the idea of running a mostly-downhill course, certified as ‘the fastest marathon in the UK’. Loch Ness and SF were wildly undulating; aggressive, spiky hills popping up at most turns for punishment on the way up and the way down in equal measure. Edinburgh starts with a gentle descent and is then overwhelmingly flat. I can’t help but imagine what might have happened if I had run Edinburgh instead of SF this year – no jetlag, no crazy early start, no mad sightseeing or cycling adventures the day before and most of all no real hills. All else being equal, how much time could I have taken off? 5 minutes? More?
 
The trade-off, of course, is that whilst SF was a 26.2 mile sightseeing tour of an iconic American city, Edinburgh’s course is mostly on tedious, exposed seafront and largely run in rural East Lothian. Instead of enjoying a two-week holiday in the USA I’ll be back to work the next day. Instead of finishing on a palm tree-lined boulevard with the Bay Bridge in the background I’ll be crossing the line on a random street in an anonymous suburb. But who cares? If all goes to plan, maybe I won’t be out there for long...
 
Put simply, I want to run for a PB in Edinburgh in May 2012. And I am going to work very, very hard to get it.
 
Watch this space.
 
Happy running
 
Dave

2011 to date: miles: 1008.56, parkruns: 6, races: 6, miles biked: 120.06, metres swum: 1225 

I love the bling

I was never a sporty child.

I used to visit friends’ houses and marvel at the bedroom shelves – or sometimes the mantelpiece or even a fancy cabinet – full to bursting with trophies, ribbons and medals from football, cricket, judo, horse riding, athletics and dozens of other active youthful pursuits which resulted in gold-coloured plastic being handed out on a termly basis. Adorned with tiny plaques engraved with such banalities as ‘Runner-Up, Under-11s 1997-98 season’, they served as dust-collecting reminders of my relative (and indeed complete) lack of prowess as a sportsman. I never, ever, (to my recollection) received anything like that.

Maybe I exaggerate, but only because the instances in which I did collect such awards are so tragically comic. I do remember being given a few bizarre medals for sports participation on package holidays, which I wore with glowing pride in the full knowledge that anyone who attended any given activity twice merited such an award. Worse still, I recall being presented with a medal at the end of a friend’s birthday party, which was organised as an extended competition since the birthday boy was so sporty*. Everyone’s medal was different – the birthday boy’s a gleaming gold as he came first, mine a dull, almost grey bronze colour to indicate, I think, that I came dead last. When I got home I spray-painted it with some leftover gold Christmas paint and completely ruined it, the paint collecting in the grooves and making a sad, sticky mess. Then I threw it away.

As the years without collecting any sporting bling dragged on I decided that I probably didn’t want anything like that anyway. Let the kids play their silly games and collect their shiny mementoes if they want – I don’t need anything like that. Not while I have the smug satisfaction of the non-participant.

Paris, Brighton, San Francisco and Loch Ness Marathon medals

So it came as a bit of a surprise to me when, aged 21, I was so incredibly excited to receive a medal after my first professionally-organised run. It was the old,  now-twice-superseded Edinburgh Half Marathon, subdivided for us newbies into a 4-person relay of roughly 5k legs. We were given the same medals as people who completed the full distance, rewards which claimed we had run a half marathon each. I was utterly overjoyed.

Over the following couple of years I became a magpie for the things, delighted when my collection outgrew the successive storage and display ideas I came up with. Where the opportunity existed, and particularly for marathon medals, I had them engraved with my name and finish time. 

I became a connoisseur of medals, sometimes even choosing races based on how good I thought the bling would be. I cherished the ones that were emblazoned with the date, the distance, the name of the race and a quality logo, disparaging those which missed any of my criteria. Finally, I felt, I could look those stupid little football trophies in the eye. In a similar, though less obsessive vein, I grew infatuated with the freebie T-shirts handed out at races. Then I started carefully preserving all my race numbers. My collection of bling and stash quickly became unmanageable.

The whole ridiculous collection

I think it was after my seventh or eighth major race, however, when the shine started to come off medal-collecting. The pile of bling became weighty and unruly. It looks ridiculous to have them all out in one place.

 When I ran two Kilomathons six months apart, one in Derbyshire and the other in West Lothian, and received identical medals because the organisers decided to save themselves a few quid, I grew a little cynical about the whole concept. I finished the Meadows (half) Marathon this year and realised that they didn’t award medals, which briefly irritated me before I decided that I was quite pleased not to have to lug home another piece of commemorative metal on a ribbon. Only when the MokRun handed out beautiful, handmade and glazed pottery medals on tartan ribbons did I briefly think that there was still mileage in collecting them. But, like many of my running friends, I more or less resigned to the idea that the medals were a silly distraction for beginners and bucket list marathoners. We real runners don’t need such nonsense.

But just last week, we had some of the Crew Chief’s family to stay. Despite the fact that my medals are currently tucked away in the bottom of a cabinet in the corner of our living room, they caught the eye of one of our guests, and she asked me about them. I glowed with pride as I explained how I got them, probably looking not unlike myself as a twelve year old boy, walking proudly around a Club Med resort wearing a mad medal shaped like Poseidon which declared my low-level commitment to archery (if this seems confusing, it is). Each one is a little marker in my running career, a tiny little witness which unobtrusively says ‘I was there, and I did that’.

Alright, alright, I love the bling. I earned it, after all.

Happy running

Dave

2011 to date: miles: 991.94, parkruns: 6, races: 6, miles biked: 111.06, metres swum: 1225 

*That boy, now definitely a man, recently ran his first marathon. It was much, much slower than mine. I am in the process of building a time machine to go back and tell my eight-year old self all about it. He will be delighted.