I was good too. In those days if you ran marathons you ran with a club, against other clubs. You didn’t walk round the course dressed in a deep-sea diver outfit in aid of a good cause, you ran to win the race. When I was 18 years old I dreamed of running a sub 3 hour marathon and spent hours training at 7min mile pace (a time which would give me 3:02 – I was just hoping to go that bit faster on the day of the race and finish in under three hours). In my first year in college I went a lot faster and won a race in 2hours and 48minutes, which was good. Then studying got in the way. After college I was looking forward to improving on my time and picked up on the training again, too quickly as it happened because the cartilage in my left knee shattered (like I said this was pre running-boom and I’d run everything in flat, Dunlop Green-Flash tennis shoes). I spent the next five years in and out of hospital and had a total of 7 knee operations.
While I was in there, Britain discovered mountain bikes and I was prescribed one to rehabilitate the knee in order that I might walk properly again. I was told I would never compete in a bike race as the knee wouldn’t heal sufficiently. This proved to be nonsense as I have raced ever since on and off road. I was told I would definitely never run again and this proved to be true. I haven’t pulled on a pair of running shoes and set one foot in front of another for the intervening 24 years.
Until today.
Today I am in the middle of Banstead Woods, surrounded by 160 other people and I feel like I am about to collapse from the effort of trying to run just 5 kilometres. My mind is constantly focusing on the prospect that at any moment my knee might collapse and completely jeopardise any future cycling let alone be able to actually walk back to the car. This is no condition to be running in, adding to the tension in my shoulders and arms and compromising what little efficiency I have after so long away from the sport. I have been close to vomiting since I ran off the line some 12 minutes ago and really, really want to stop. I seem to be hitting ‘the wall’ in a 5k run.
How did I get here? It’s a shaggy dog story. A mate form work discovered he’s got Retinits Pigmentosis, which mean he’s slowly going blind – it’s a degenerative condition and there’s no cure for it. They took his driving license away as soon as he was diagnosed. His response was inspiring, he left work, went back to college to do his masters degree in journalism and took up marathon running. He’s good, and within six-months knocked 10 minutes off my ‘office record,’ posting a 2hours 38mins. And he did it in the London Marathon surrounded by thousands of others getting in his way. He is now regularly a guide-runner for unsighted runners while he waits for his sight to slowly degenerate when he will need to be guided himself.
Anyway he’s organised a team of runners to enter his local 5k on behalf of the Retinitis Pigmentosis Charity. He asked a load of mates (including me) to join the team, and how can you say no to something like that? Anyway the run is next week on bank holiday Monday, so I thought I’d better see if I can actually run 5k before getting down there and making a fool of myself.
So, I haven’t run in nearly 25 years and here I am on the line of the Banstead Woods Parkrun 5k. There are some very fast looking runners here. There are also fat guys, old women, little children and very gnarly old men all around me, but thankfully nobody dressed as Big Ben. I know I can’t expect to run fast but being passed by Big Ben would be hard to bear. Chloe is here as is Dangerous Ben Fancourt from Addiscombe. These are proper runners, Chloe is training for the Ball Buster and Ben has a half-marathon tomorrow. I line up, do a couple of Usain Bolt smoothing my eyebrows manoeuvres to spook the opposition then the gun goes. I’ve deliberately got on the front line thinking that if I can sprint to the bottleneck amongst the leaders I can hold up at least half the field as they try to get around me on the narrow trail.
The reality is half the field sprint past me before the bottleneck so I’m half way down the field anyway and knackered from starting too fast. Children run past me. Then Chloe runs past me like I’m running on the spot.
I reach the top bend after what feels like an hour of lung-burning sprinting and deep nausea begins to set in. Fortunately there’s an extended gradual downhill section for the second half of the lap and I recover a bit. I’m trying to keep Chloe’s pink backside in sight as I’ve been coaching her and I know what kind of pace she’s likely to be running at – If I can just stay somewhere near her I’ll at least be respectable. Around the bend and onto the finishing straight for the first time and after the downhill I’ve recovered. My body briefly seems to remember that this is something familiar and I get a slight sense that I’m floating over the ground. Chloe’s backside even starts to get larger as I close the gap to her.
I feel like I’ve been running for my entire life as I round the corner to enter the second lap but the timekeeper shouts out a split time of “10.08.†TEN MINUTES! I feel close to death and you tell me I’ve only been running for ten minutes! The upside is that this is a split faster than I could have dreamed of and I dig deep on “The Hillâ€. I settle in behind Chloe until I realise that “The Hill†isn’t really hurting me so I run past her. I look into her eyes but she doesn’t even know I’m there.
Half way up the long drag to the top of the course I start to crack mentally. I really, really want to stop but convince myself that the downhill is just round the corner. There’s a runner ten yards in front of me slowing down markedly so I concentrate on passing him. It’s so unlike bike racing where you can just put in a hard dig and quickly close the gap… when you’re already on the limit you just can’t put in anything extra. It takes ages to close the gap and when you close it you can’t just sit in to recover, you have to run just as hard.
It takes me the remainder of the long downhill to catch and get past him, I’m constantly looking over my shoulder to see who might be finishing faster than me rather than concentrating on finishing myself and I feel worse than I feel near the end of a 100 mile sportive on the bike. On the bottom corner the timekeeper shouts “20.18†or something but there’s no way I can lift the pace to attack a sub 21 minute run, I feel overweight, old and slow as I cross the line 40th in a far from Bekelian 21:01.
Chloe is 18 seconds back but her face is so long because I’ve beaten her that it finishes several minutes ahead of us. Ben got 5th in a proper quick 18 minutes and something.
So that’s it – until next Monday at least. My body hurts in places I didn’t know I had. Everything is tired, my legs, my arms, even my hair seems to be knackered. So now I’m wondering - do I go back or wait another 24 years before the next one?
), building up to the half marathon I'm running for great ormond st in october.
