Here come the races

The season is upon us, and as usual, my spring race calendar has morphed from a carefully-designed schedule of well-placed races into a multi-faceted beast of confusion. Here goes:

Next weekend I am taking my first stab at the Tunbridge Wells half marathon. Local to my parents and the town I grew up in, this race is the stage for an almighty smackdown of old schoolfriends. Five of us are training for two different marathons and we are all using the TW half as a tune-up event – and probably a vehicle for extensive side bets. It’s an oldie but a goodie – this is the 30th running – and has an impressive pedigree, associated with Dame Kelly Holmes and this year started by Richard Whitehead. Apparently there are a couple of tricky hills but otherwise an enjoyable course.

Then in April, two days after I get back from a family holiday necessitating long-haul travel, my jetlagged and rum-soaked brain and I will be running the Edinburgh Rock n Roll half marathon – as I understand it a new and improved version of last year’s race.  As with all local races I’ll be out to recce the course beforehand and get a feel for what the event will be like – but I have suspicions that the Rock n Roll brand will make for  a good day out... One of my Wall Run teammates will be joining me too, so there will be a decision-making point probably about 200 yards from the finish line as to whether or not we are racing each other…

Not sure if I’ve mentioned, but I’ve only gone and got a place in the VLM. It’s the week after the Rock n Roll half, which should be fine. Should be. Fine.

A few weeks later it’s back to hillrunning, and I am planning on a first crack at the Dumyat Hill Race in May. Based on a historic bet and starting 30 yards from my office, it would seem ridiculous and foolish to pass up the opportunity to run thousands of feet up a large hill/small mountain and back down again in the space of five miles. I have two goals: 1, don’t break an ankle and 2, finish. I’m less bothered about 2.

The Wall Run. I’ve definitely mentioned this before. It’s in June and it’s really far and you should sponsor me.

As usual, I entered the ballot for the Great North Run this year, but most unusually I actually got  a place! OK, with it being in September I am rather stretching the spring season, but after The Wall it’s the only thing in my calendar at all. This year I think I’m going to wear shoes, and might actually try to run it for a time rather than just plod along soaking up the atmosphere…

Are you racing this year? Have I missed anything that I should really have a crack at ASAP? I am open to suggestions...

Happy racing

Dave

2013 to date: miles run - 141.38, parkruns: 1, miles biked: 3

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

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.