Tuesday 25 February 2014

2014 Bookham 10K

You know you are a runner when you base your entire local geography by race venues.

There isn't a week that goes by that I don't have a conversation with someone that goes along the following lines:
Me: Sooooooo where are you based?
Unwilling victim: (Insert location in London or south east England)
Me: Ah yes I've raced a 10k there, fast course actually, although a few hills near the start to test the legs...

The reaction to this is normally somewhere between bemusement and ambivalence.

So when my now girlfriend and I met up for our first date, I was geared up for the inevitable "Where are you based" question. I thought could wow her with personal bests (41:21 for 10k thanks for asking) that I'd done at races where she lived and regale her with training routes in the region. This, I thought, will definitely impress her....

And so when the time came, I puffed out my chest, one hand clenching the table the other with my fingers crossed, and I asked the question:
"So where are you based?"
"Bookham" came the reply.
I paused and reached into my mind vaults like Charles Augustus Magnuson from Sherlock (although for less maniacal reasons, and definitely sans face licking...) - I found nothing.

Nine months later, and there we were expecting...the starting gun for the Bookham 10K. I love the circuit of club races that we do every year but its always good to have new challenges. And 2013's race certainly was that, full of mud, knee deep puddles and stony hills, it was of epic proportions to say the least and adds about ten minutes onto what you would normally do for the distance. I was 50th in 53:13.

Fast forward 12 months and I was back for a second go at this horrendous course. A rousing rendition of the national anthem soon raised the spirits however. It wasn't just me singing by myself I hasten to add, this was coordinated en mass by the organisers and the whole field joined in. Maybe they could do this before every championship or league race in the County, now that would be brilliant...

Soon enough, the race was on and immediately whole swathes of runners launched past me. My tactics and aims were simple, keep at 7-7.30 minutes a mile and try and get in a coveted (in my mind anyway) top 50 slot. And for goodness sake don't get injured ahead of next week's Surrey cross country league finale.

The first of these aims was proving all the more difficult after my Garmin packed up five minutes before the start. Lovely, £80 well spent. And so I'd have to go on feel and trust in my Casio f-91w (£4.99) that has never let me down yet.

At roughly 5K in, I hadn't made much progress through the field as I'd have liked. But then it came...one of the steepest inclines in all the races I compete in. Last year I approached it and wondered why people near the top of it were walking, I quickly found out why.

Not only is it steep - it proceeds to go on and on and on. But one thing my horrific experience in Parliament Hill gave me seven days ago, it was strength up the hills, and sure enough, despite treading water when I was at the top, I'd taken a dozen or so athletes in the process.

After 32 minutes. I overheard two other runners talking about the race, one of them turned out to be 2nd in the women's comp. Turns out we had run 6k. 6k?! This is abysmal. Next up was a downhill, a very long descent that is borderline dangerous if you actively try and sprint down due to perilous tree roots, stones, gravel, old brick and drain covers. I decided to play it safe, until another runner from an all too familiar club got beside me.

It was a Wimbledon Windmiler.

Six days from now, my club would be facing the windmilers in a straight shoot out to see who will be promoted to the 1st division of the Surrey XC league. It is all horrendously nerve wracking but it is likely that every spot will count on the day.

It is amazing what the heat of battle can do to the brain. My tactics of playing it safe quickly went out the window, and my focus changed to trying to beat him at all costs. A bizarre (and silly) thing to think considering it extremely unlikely that myself or indeed himself are likely to feature in our clubs scoring teams if we are seven minutes a mile.

But it doesn't matter, nothing matters more in this moment than beating him, I must vanquish him at all costs.

And then I rolled my ankle.

A funny thing...injuries.Or in this case a close call to injury - it all happens in a matter of a split second. Here I hit a rock embedded in the ground and nearly went over. Instinctively my body bolted upright to correct itself. I landed back flat on my feet and all was well...I'd got away with it. Common sense prevailed, and I put the brakes on. Next week is the biggie...not this one. I didn't get close to the Windmiler again.

The last few kilometres were an almighty slog. Boggy and hilly, I was slipping everywhere all the while losing precious positions. There is nothing more frustrating than not being out of breath and yet being unable to push the pace on, purely down to footwear and the sludge underfoot.

Be that as it may, I approached the last kilometre with some relief and reached the infamous of "puddles of death". I've coined that phrase, I don't think it'll catch on. These puddles are so deep, they are knee high, and it's basically a gamble as to where your foot lands, and indeed whether it comes back out again with a shoe still encasing it.

I launch in and as soon as I do, my foot turned to ice. It was freezing and unpleasant memories of last years National Champs in Sunderland came flooding back to me. After ploughing through the first puddle and neared the second, the one saving grace was that my girlfriend's parents were on hand to cheer me on. I was in much need of the support after such a hard slog and they were also able to document my pain in photographic format.

"That'll be a good one for Facebook" I thought and thus confirming to the social media 

Having lost a place through the puddles I made it back on the road to home on the pavements that I was oh so relieved to see. Little did I know that that move was for 50th place and that is where I'd remain in a time of 53:04, nine seconds quicker than 12 months ago. My lack of training at least hasn't killed me off entirely then....


Objective achieved then, but this wasn't the real battle, that comes in six days from now, and it comes at the Surrey league finale...

Thursday 6 February 2014

2014 SEAA Cross-Country Championships

Parliament Hill….my nemesis. Words can’t really do justice for my feelings towards this course, which is full of hills, mud, more hills and yet more mud. I’d go as far as saying that I've never run well here prior to this season. It is…in short…hell.

It was with some trepidation then that I lined up on the start-line for the South of England cross-country championships to take on nine miles of joy. As I did, all the horror stories of my previous runs quickly came flooding back.

My first ever run here came back in 2006 at the National championships as a junior man. The race was won by GB international Andy Vernon, in third was former National champion Keith Gerrard and in fourth was a certain Olympic Triathlon gold medallist Alistair Brownlee. But while these guys laid the foundation for their successful senior years, I however was at the back having a character building experience of my own. And when I write “at the back” I really do mean it. After the first 400m (which is completely uphill) I was rock stone last. I’d turned up to this competition without having run at all for the past month due to studying and clearly thought I could wing it. How wrong I was. In the distance, I could only see one other runner, a chap from Orion Harriers who was equally as unfit as I was. I caught him up and we vowed to help each other for the remainder of the race.

And help each other we did, tortuously wading through the quagmire and trotting painfully slowly up hills of increasing difficulty, every step getting ever more painful. At one point we reached a part of the course which appeared to be closed off. As it turned out, an official had in fact taped it off thinking it all the runners in our race had gone through. We duly ducked under the tape and trudged on. About 1km from the finish, the Orion Harrier got away, and I never saw him again, meanwhile hundreds of under 13’s swarmed me (which must have included GB junior internationals Rikki Letch and Charlie Grice), meaning that I was being overtaken by a race that had started 30 minutes after I’d set off. Humiliating doesn’t even begin to sum up how I felt. Tired and exhausted I dragged myself over the line in about an hour and duly collapsed. Trying to explain to the organizers that I wasn’t in fact an overgrown twelve year-old was an interesting and ultimately fruitless exercise. To this day, there remains no evidence of me ever having competed and there’s no sign of the Orion Harrier either.

Fast forward seven years, and the SEAA Champs last year which easily ranks as my worst race as a senior. The reasons for this were, as always, self-inflicted. Firstly I had eaten virtually nothing in preparation for the race barring breakfast (eight hours before the race) and a few Jaffa cakes. Time had got the better of me while cheering on the young athletes at the club, and I foolishly had forgotten to eat. Schoolboy error. The second fatal flaw was the fact that I opted for trail shoes. Never again will I make this mistake, slipping and sliding, it was a nightmare and not one I would recommend to anyone under any circumstances. Tired and weary, as I slid towards 1km to go, I fell flat on my face. I got up, humiliated, and promptly repeated the feat in front of another local club’s photographer.
“Nice dive Matt…”
Thanks…
Thankfully he missed the photographic opportunity.
When I crossed the line (83:26 for nine miles…), I was wobbling all over the place and had to get photographer and supporter of the club Thomas Haywood to force feed me his energy bar (my hands were mud covered after the earlier falls on my face). If he hadn't, I may not have completed the 400m walk to my bag. I remain ever so grateful.

And so to this year….

As I lined up in my pen, I knew that at the very least I’d done the basics right. I had actually eaten food (hurrah!) and I had spikes this time round. On the start-line next to us included two very talented runners who I’d met before, Gilbert Grundy a thoroughly nice guy from Woking who’d finish 23rd and Rob McTaggart another top chap from Bournemouth, who was always very supportive when I was hacking around at Bournemouth AC (I still hold their record for their slowest marathon) during Uni – he’d finish 92nd. Both of those results are incredible given the standard, and for the fact that there were nearly a thousand runners in the field. My aims were a lot less ambitious than top 100 finishes – they were don’t come last, don’t fall over and don’t get lapped…preferably in that order.

The gun went, and an inspiring sight, as nearly a thousand of us ploughed up the hill. “Don’t go off too fast Matt” I tell myself while trying not to skewer the bloke in front of me with my 15mm spikes. Reaching the top in one piece, we turn right downhill and this is when it hit me….the sheer volume of mud was gargantuan. Wading through, it was hard work to say the least and this was only five minutes into the race. With so many people in close proximity, it was hard work trying to stay with my colleague Martin Rowe. We had made a pact to try and work together as much as possible, but it took me about half a lap to catch him. And so we battled on through the mud and hills, as this hellish course became all too familiar once more.

After the first lap, things were going smoothly, I felt remarkably fresh, and trotting along at eight minutes a mile was doing the trick. And indeed on the second lap things ticked along nicely, the only downside was I lost Martin along the way and gave my sunglasses to spectator (and excellent runner) Peter Chambers as it was just too dark to see…a storm brewing perhaps?

As I approached my third and final lap I realized that I hadn’t been lapped which was excellent news. But one problem had crept in and that was hunger pangs. Time to implement operation “jelly babies” (other sweets are available), and start wolfing down said sweets which were stored in my shorts (not a euphemism). They got me through my two marathons and they were going to get me through this one if it killed me.

One mile to go and the heavens opened with a drizzle. “Oh please hold off until the finish” I pleaded to myself internally but it wasn't to be, the weather was here to stay. I fought onto the line even managing a sprint to the finish, frankly delighted with the result. Under 74 minutes, about nine minutes faster than last year and ahead of over three hundred people to boot.

The euphoria lasted all of about ten seconds.

“Take your chips off please” cried the officials who had been standing there all day. What unsung heroes they are.

I knelt down into the mud to tackle this seemingly simple task. The chip, strapped by Velcro to my mud caked leg was almost glued to my calf. I fumbled around trying to find the way to unfasten it (not an unfamiliar feeling…) but to no avail; I must have been there for minutes messing around and crucially began to shiver. Bet Usain Bolt doesn't have this problem…

Eventually I got rid of the chip shaped shackle and began to jog to the team tent…and then the worst happened, the heavens REALLY opened. Down came the rain, then the winds picked up….and then came the apocalyptic thunder. I've never seen anything like the weather we had in that short space of time, trying to get changed, pack away the tent/club flag without being able to feel my hands is not an experience I want to repeat any time soon. I screamed an array of fruity language into the sky, wondering what on earth I was doing here, much to the bemusement of other runners who had packed up and were heading home. OK for some…

Having left the house at 7.30am, I made it back home at 7.40pm (thanks Southern Rail). Everything I had on that day either went into the bath, washing machine or next to a radiator. I slept for nearly twelve hours that night.


Until next year I thought as my head hit the pillow, until next year…