There I stood; beneath the trees lining
the path that lead down to the main field; watching the mist rise slowly revealing
sponsor stall after sponsor stall; taking in as much as I could from this
experience.
One or two other runners; who had also
arrived early; strolled around casually, a few more sat on the grass; beneath
other trees; reading books or listening to music through their headphones.
It was the morning of the 2014 Ealing
Half Marathon; my first official half marathon race; and the scene was
remarkably calm compared with the bundle of nerves that were flushing around
within my stomach.
I hadn’t known what to expect; I was
there on my own; had the largest kit bag I could have ever have chosen to fill;
extra clothing, some food, a reading book and a beer for celebrating at the
end.
Everything bundled together throughout
the day, I made all the common rookie mistakes; wore too much gear, placed
myself in the wrong starting area, flew out of the blocks too quickly, didn’t
look at the route before the run; which meant that I didn’t know about just how
hilly the route was, and therefore suffered a little when I did hit the hilly
sections, etc etc etc…
I finished that race; just about; in a
time of 1:52:29; found the friends that had come to see me there at the end and
literally collapsed at their feet as I fought to gather my breath.
Roll the clock forward one year; four half
marathons, one marathon, four 10k races and one 5k Spartan obstacle race; and
you end up right back in the same place; Sunday, September 27th; and
the morning of the 2015 Ealing Half Marathon.
I wasn’t as early as I was the year
before. I didn’t have time to take in the atmosphere, or the serenity of a
misty Sunday morning. No, this time I managed to park my car in the lot that I
know of near Ealing Broadway tube station (£1 for the entire day!! Brilliant
value); rushed down to the event location, threw my bag into the baggage tent;
ran up to the starting block and got into position just before the starting
time of 9am. Thankfully we started a little late though due to waiting for the
course to be made 100% clear.
I hate starting races like that. I like
to get there, get settled in, have a walk around, do some people watching, pick
out the newbies, have a giggle as I think back to when I first started, and how
I used to be just like those few people who are clearly attending their first
proper event. I thought back to that ridiculously huge bag I had; how much I’ve
learned over the last year etc…!
Eventually we set off, slowly getting
across the start line and heading on up the road, 13.1 miles of nostalgic
bliss; 21.1km of efficiently timed; paced out; running. I was not letting this
run beat me; Kimbolton beat me; GNR beat me; Ealing was not going to do the
same; my Puma Points Challenge team deserved a Captains’ effort; my Running Bug
history deserved a super users’ effort; and the event itself deserved the respect
of a well thought out plan.
It was on!
My current HM PB was sitting at
01:32:37, and had been that way since July. I hadn’t actually set a PB for any
distance through the month of August; a big no no in my books since I have set
at least one personal best at some point through each month of the year so far
and I was due a personal best!
I had set myself the target of finishing
in a time of 01:31:30; that would be a pacing per kilometre of 4:21; I figured
I could manage that comfortably. I sat with my notebook through Saturday night,
working out the different 5k and 10k sectors; all I needed to do was run each
5km sector in 21:56, this subsequently meant two 10k split times of 43:52
respectively.
These split times would get me to 20km
in a time of 01:27:00 leaving me 4mins and 30seconds in which to complete the
additional 1.1km to complete the distance, and hit my target.
Not only was I certain that I could run
the 5k sectors, in the time I had stipulated, but if I struggled to run two 10k
splits in nearly 44mins each, then there would have definitely been something
wrong. It was the final 1.1km in 4:30 that concerned me; I knew that at some
point I would need to take a kilometre at pace in order to remove that from the
equation.
All of this math was running through my
head, it had been for a couple of days already, all this math for someone who
didn’t even do math at school; oh how my old teachers would have stood jaw to
the floor if they could see me now!
We crossed the first kilometre in 4:20;
job done; let’s keep it that way. I clenched my fist; gave the air a little
punch and allowed myself a bit of a positive mental boost. We crossed
kilometres two and three in exactly the same pace times; I was running perfectly.
For some reason I increased the pace through the fourth as it dropped to 4:09,
but a little bit of an incline up and over into the fifth brought that pace
back in line at 4:21. It was still on; it was still good; and I was still
feeling right on the money. The fifth kilometre lead down into the sixth;
obviously; and I was flying, but I didn’t want to get carried away and held
back a little until I suddenly thought about that final 1.1km; the kilometre
that required a faster pace!
“Why not bust that out now?” I asked
myself; we had just crossed the first 5km sector in 21:30; 26seconds inside of
my target time; effectively 26seconds in the bank!
“Turn it on Dorsett; use this to your
advantage while you can!”
I didn’t push myself to my limit; I
didn’t want to make the mistakes of previous races; it was still too early for
that but I still managed a 4:01 through that sixth kilometre. I actually found
myself running with the 1hr30 pacers and thought about sticking with them for a
while, but I knew that that would mean running at about 4:15pkm for the rest of
the run, and I wasn’t mentally prepared for that since I had geared everything
towards running a complete average of 4:21.
I must quickly say, the pacers at EHM
are awesome. They operate as a two man team and guide their followers through
each section of the route really well. As I ran with them for a little we hit a
minor incline; “RIGHT; 130 FINISHERS!” one of them shouted; “LET’S TAKE THIS
LITTLE HILL AND THEN IT’S OVER AND DOWN FOR A GOOD FEW KILOMETRES. KEEP IT
GOING; YOU’RE DOING WELL!”
“Right Andrew; time to pull back a
little now and just compose yourself, let’s not get carried away with this
group!” so I let them go.
It was a lesson well learned from my
visit here last year. Last year I tried to stick with the 1:50 pacers, felt
that they were running too easily and flew off up ahead only to end up
struggling and then watching the pacer come flying by me with about 5k to go.
It was soul destroying to watch them go past me as they did and I wasn’t
letting that happen to me again so I did as I said to myself and just pulled
back a little.
I went through seven, eight and nine
with relative ease; watching my pace and allowing a little comfort with splits
of 4:12; 4:25 & 4:23 respectively. I was still well within the target pace
and then completed the tenth kilometre in a faster time again of 4:12 which
meant that I had completed the first 10k sector in 42:43; a clear 1:09 within
target pace; but the heat was beginning to play on the body; the traffic became
a little congested, and the route was getting a little more technical with a
lot of sharp turns left and right. It was here that I started feeling a buzzing
sensation through my head, something wasn’t right. I felt this same thing at
GNR to be honest, and I’m pretty sure it’s due to the fact that I am simply not
hydrating well enough through the race as I don’t really take on any fluids as
I run; so I grabbed a bottle at the next water station, had a few sips and soon
felt much better. Note to self really; don’t be an idiot; take on water!
Kilometres eleven through sixteen are
all very up and down and my times reflected that, but I was still not going too
badly; and was actually running fairly strong, but there was an issue; I had a
nuisance in my ears which was putting me off my stride!
There was a guy who had been running
alongside me for a kilometre or two and the sound that he was generating was just
putting me off so much. I know it isn’t nice to say; and I’m not trying to
sound nasty or anything; but the force with which he was slamming his feet into
the ground was really bugging me. All I could think was that he was the reason
people moan about sore knees; which felt even more applicable as I looked at
his legs and noticed both knees heavily strapped.
“Maybe try being a little more light on
your feet and you wouldn’t need those straps mate!” I thought to myself, and
then couldn’t take it anymore and just popped the pace a little in order to break
away from him and his big, heavy shoes slamming the ground with each bounding
stride that he took.
Thankfully he couldn’t keep up, and my
focus soon returned to the near silence of my own footfall and evenly paced
breathing. Thankfully; I was getting back on track.
As we entered the final sector of the
race and kicked back a SiS gel that I had; nicely hidden away in my pocket;
ready for the final 5k race. The pace began to pick up again and it was time to
start working out the math as the race drew to a close. “Would I have enough
time to get this done in time?”
“How many kilometres did we have left,
and how much time did I have left in which to finish them?”
“About 3k to go, and approximately fourteen
minutes in which to do them.”
That worked out to 3km @ 4:30pkm with a
30second sprint over the final 100m; IF the course was accurate!
That pace; over that distance; was
easily achievable, and after having a little bit of a panic due to suddenly not
feeling very strong for some reason, the gel from a kilometre or so back
started to kick in.
I felt the energy shiver through my
legs. I started to revel in the knowledge that I now had a PB in the bag, but I
didn’t want to get carried away with myself. I knew the ending of this course;
I remember it being a very sneaky; and a somewhat false finale!
The final kilometre starts; pretty much;
on the starting area and leads you down into; and through; Lammas’ Park. It
takes you down the pathway through the park for about 500m through the trees
with a slight bend to the left and continue on for another few hundred metres.
You then take another left, only this time a more sharply and ground kicks up
ever so slightly. It’s about 400m to the end from here and the very gradual
incline feels like it goes on for double the distance before kicking you off
onto the grass for the final 100m and across the finish line.
The entire way through that final
kilometre had me glancing at my watch constantly; watching as the seconds
ticked over ever nearer to my current PB time. I was tired, and I felt a little
sickly, but as I saw the time cross over my target of 1:31:30 I kicked one last
time and sprinted for that line, clenching my fist and shouting at the timing
mats as I stopped my watch.
I wasn’t 100% certain that I had
achieved a new PB given that I always go by the official chip times for race
situations, and am used to courses not being exact to the distance on my watch,
but things looked pretty bang on this time.
I had cross the line with the exact
distance for a half marathon, if there was a difference at all, it wouldn’t be
by much. I was confident of a personal best, but I kept my composure and waited
for the official results to come through later in the day; hopefully!
It was a strange way to finish my race
though to be honest; nobody there for me; no friends, no family, in a place
that I had once called home yet felt like just another person that had
journeyed into London to complete another run. I took a few minutes to myself
to just reflect on the run, run through my post run routine of stretches etc…
and then made my way to the barriers and tape so that I could provide my own
support to those still coming in behind me.
As I stood amongst different crowds of
“supporters” I shouted and clapped as loudly as I could for those still running,
and then barked at the people stood idly by; not cheering, or clapping, or
doing anything! Just stood looking at me as if I were on some kind of drug!
“Show some support dammit, don’t just
look at me like I’m a raving lunatic, these people are doing something
awesome!” … I get annoyed when people just stand in groups of silence not
cheering; why stand there if you aren’t going to support. Don’t get me wrong,
the support at EHM is good, I just get annoyed when groups of people stand
there literally
I made my way further and further up the
line, clapping all the way, stopping every few meters to shout words of
encouragement to the strangers running past everybody; trying to urge more of
those around me to get louder. One other runner ahead of me was cheering just
as much though as we both walked and stopped at roughly the same times.
“Top support that man up ahead!” I
shouted at him. The guy turned, and returned the compliment. We high fived and
introduced ourselves to one another. Rashad was his name, a Bangladeshi born
gent schooled in the States. He had also completed the run in a PB time; “beat
my time by about 6mins!” he said.
“Awesome; what was your time” I asked.
“1:24!”
“Wowsers!! That’s awesome, well done
you!”
We walked together back up into Ealing
Broadway, discussing our histories in running, and how we came to be at this
point that we were at. It turned out that he was actually an ultra-runner and
had completed a number of 100k events, but had only recently taken up running
official half marathons! I was grateful to myself for making my initial comment
to him about his level of support for those finishing after us. If I hadn’t
sparked the conversation it would have been a much more lonely walk back into
the broadway, and it really helped to remove that level of lonely nostalgia
that had tried to work its way into the end of my run.
I got into my car, sat for a minute,
allowing myself a last little bit of reflection on the entire morning.
For some reason it almost felt as if it
were the last time I would sitting there really. There isn’t anybody left in
the neighbourhood for me to have a reason to visit anymore, and I had achieved
my goal of beating my previous time by some margin.
I started the car and drove off, back on
the road to home where I awaited my official chip time.
When my official time did eventually
come through I was over the moon. Not only had I beaten my time, and set a new
personal best of 01:31:52, but I had managed to start; and stop; my watch at
exactly the right times as the timing technology. My chip time matched my
Garmin details to the second! I’m a stickler for details like that so it just
rounded my entire day off rather nicely.
It had been a great day. It had had its
moments, its ups and its downs. It had me worried, it had me feeling confident,
a complete mixed bag of emotions, but in the end everything had been an
overwhelming success. If anybody ever has any thoughts about running the Ealing
Half, I would do it; it really is a good route, and it is very well organised.
So that was that, my circle complete,
EHM ’14-’15, I had; as said; achieved the goal of beating my first time by a
significant margin. I had earned a personal best for my Puma Points Challenge
team; Team Momentum; but this leaves just one more target to hit.
One more race to be treated with an air
of competitiveness.
The target of the sub 90 half.
My home town race; Sunday, November the
15th.
The St Neots Half Marathon.
#EalingFeeling
#TeamMomentum
#PUMApoints
#therunningbug
#WhatsInTheBox
#RoadToSub90
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