I got to bed at about 2.30 this morning and even though I had drifted in and out of sleep in the car (luckily I wasn't driving, Simon Streeting was at the wheel. Arrogant as you like. I expect. I had my eyes shut, but there can be little doubt that he was pulling a self-reverential face), when my alarm went off at 8am, I still felt reluctant to get out of bed and then go for a stupidly long run. I would much have preferred to stay in bed, but luckily Tony was coming to pick me up (If Simon Streeting was any kind of tour manager he would have slept in the car and offered to drive me to Watford in the morning. But alas, vanity prevented him from doing this).
I hadn't really had time to think about this race, what with the rowing and the gigging, and I was mentally unprepared. Thirteen miles would be the furthest I had ever run in one go. I hoped I could make it. There's a part of me still hoping to do the actual Marathon in under four hours (I think this may be unrealistic), so I had hopes that I would do the half marathon in under two. Not that doing a half marathon in less than two hours means you can do a marathon in less than four. The second half is a bit harder than the first, according to some sources. But sub-two hours would at least be a start and I have a couple of months to train. My previous longest run was twelve miles which took me just under 2 and a quarter hours. But that was on my own; now I was in a race. I haven't subsequently managed to do 10K in anything like the race time I achieved in November.
"I think the course might be a little bit hilly," said Tony in the car. "How hilly is a bit hilly?" I asked. But Tony wasn't sure. The map had gradients marked, but we couldn't work out how extreme they were going to be. Surely the people of Watford wouldn't be so mean as to choose a course with more than a few gradual inclines. I wasn't too worried about it.
We got to the Race HQ and it was a much more professional looking affair than the 10K race that I'd done. There were to be 2000 runners for a start, so the hall was full, and the other runners looked very committed. None of them were dressed in fancy dress; there wasn't a single pair of gormless smiling men sporting moustaches and 118 jersies. I got slightly worried that I might be coming in last (and that's only if I managed to finish the bloody thing). The conversations I overheard were all very running orientated and everyone was taking it very seriously. Perhaps it is true of all obsessed people who gather somewhere to celebrate the thing that they love, but there seemed a high proportion of nerds in the room. In fact if they hadn't been dressed in running gear, but as Dr Who aliens or assistants, then you wouldn't have had any trouble in believing it was a sci-fi convention (though admittedly one attended by slightly cooler people than usual. Though is there really much difference between a Dr Who fan and a cool Dr Who fan?)
I was a little bit intimidated. Tony is a better and more dedicated runner than me, and he had an array of energy drinks and gels. He also had a pot of vaseline which he was applying to his feet. Don't worry, he's not kinky or anything (as far as I know), long distance runners have to apply this stuff to avoid chafing and unpleasantness on their feet, nipples and thighs. I didn't have any vaseline and Tony offered me some of his. I don't know him very well and it seemed wrong for me to be greasing my nipples with his Vaseline. Where would it lead? So I turned the offer down. He said I should be OK in a short race like a Half Marathon. I did accept his offer of an energy gel, which is a quick way of getting glucose or something into you and operates a bit like one of those squeezable yoghurts you can get. Not that I've got any; I'm not obsessed with yoghurts. It was the first time Tony had tried the gels; I don't know if he's ever had any of the yoghurts. Probably. He looks like the kind of bloke who has a fridge full of yoghurt and nothing else. Unlike me.
I'd worked out that if I ran nine minute miles I would just achieve my sub-two hour target. It would be close though, meaning I'd have done 13 miles in 117 minutes, with still 0.1 miles of the race remaining. Although I realised that with all the people in the race it would take me half a minute or so to get over the starting line, I still wanted to get in in under 2 hours according to the official clock. So 119 and a half minutes was going to be my target. Tony wanted to beat his personal best of around 1:43 so he'd be going quite a bit faster. Which is why he needed to vaseline his nipples. As I said, he's not kinky.
As always with these things we set off fast. I felt a twinge from my ankle, but I think my brain was just trying to desperately find a way out of having to do this (the whole Southport/Southend misunderstanding it had cooked up having failed so badly). I did my first mile in 8 minutes 15 seconds. This was encouraging and I didn't feel that I was going ridiculously fast, but never having covered this distance before I was conscious that I didn't want to exhaust myself and fail to make it. Slow and steady would be no good for me, but neither would fast and steady. I wanted the running equivalent of a middle-five. I had already given up any hope of winning, being, in my estimation in about 1000th place at best.
There were a few inclines in the first three miles, and I assumed that these were the "hills", but around the three mile mark (now out in the country having left the delights of Watford behind and still well under my 9 minute mile target) I got a fairly good indication of how wrong I was. The first hill was steep and not insubstantial. Concerned for my target time I attempted to keep the pace going, though many of my fellow competitiors decided to walk it. I didn't too badly, but as I reached the brow I let out a "Fuck" (three miles sooner than in my last race) and realised just how much it had taken out of me. It was now difficult to move one foot in front of the other. Completing another ten or eleven miles seemed beyond the realms of possibility. Especially if there were, as I suspected, any more hills.
Luckily, one of the running nerds, took my exasperated expletive outburst as an opportunity to talk to me about running. I was in no state to talk and had little interest in discussing running, because I actually was running and it was horrible so I wanted to try and foget it. But it was good because I was forced to put on a little burst of speed to avoid talking any longer (he, being a runner, soon caught me up and overtook me, giving me a withering look for even trying to defeat him). I also realised that with a little recovery time, after a hill or going fast, you find that your energy returns. Maybe I could get to the end of this after all. My time had slipped to much closer to the 9 minute average that I wanted and after a couple more miles and a couple more hills I was slightly over it. I managed to put in a fast mile to catch up a bit, but was now only about half way through and was very doubtful that I was going to make my target. A big part of me wanted to stop going for it and to slow down and just manage a finish, but there was still a little voice willing me to give it a try. It was my own little voice. I thought I should stop talking to myself in case some of these vaseline coated, running obsessed nerds thought that I was strange.
Along the way I was heartened to see that a couple of spectators, a pair of 14 year old lads had dressed up in 118 tops. Things like that keep you going. I have to see at least one pair in every race. Then I heard them making slightly disparaging remarks about how they would be better at running than us. I nearly shouted, "Well at least none of us are pathetic enough to think that dressing up as the 118 men is funny. And if you're going to dress up as the 118 men you have to put on funny moustaches and wigs, which you haven't done. So you've even failed in your attempt to be pathetically unamusing."
But then I wasn't sure they had disparaged us. And anyway, saying all that would have taken a lot of effort.
Once I was half way through (in under an hour) I realised that I just had to keep going at this pace and I'd get the time I wanted. But every corner I turned seemed to be hiding another hill. On the plus side, once you were at the top you usually got a nice downhill bit. But all in all, I would much rather have been running on the straight.
I ate my energy gel. It seemed a bit futuristic, like something from Star Trek. Maybe this was a Dr Who convention, recreating some episode where Dr Who had gone to a planet where everyone jogged everywhere. I had also started to wonder if any of the race Marshalls (who all had "Marshall" written on their jerkins), had the surname Mathers. To my exercise addled brain this seemed amusing. I consequently had a an Eminem song in my head for almost the entire run.
From around about half way I noticed my right foot was hurting and surmised (correctly as it turned out) that I had a blister on the sole of my foot. This made things uncomfortable, but I couldn't slow down now. With about three miles to go there was suddenly a searing pain in the same foot and I surmised (again correctly)that the blister had just burst. I would either have to stop or keep running and banging this burst blister against Watford concrete. This hurt quite a lot. For any ladies reading this I would estimate that the pain was about twice as bad as that experienced in childbirth (it's just a guess. It might easily be more). But I didn't give up. I ran through the pain, hardly complaining or going "Ow!" at all. Women in child-birth please take note and maybe learn something from my example. I only tell that part of the story so that you will all realise what a brave and heroic and strong man I am.
I also realised that I should never say no to a man offering me Vaseline again. I also got a slightly sore nipple, though that was probably only about half as bad as child birth, so I haven't gone on about that.
Finally I arrived back at the park, but with the finishing post in sight we had to do a slightly frustrating last lap of the park to take us up to our 13.1 miles. I had decided I didn't want to go crazy over the last couple of miles, because this was as much a test of whether I could get to a pace that I could carry on into the second half of a real Marathon and I wanted my time to reflect that. I knew by now that something would have to go pretty badly wrong for me to come in in over two hours.
Tony was waiting to cheer me on (he'd also as it turns out broken his personal best by about a minute) and I put on a final sprint, doing deliberately comical big strides as I passed a few people in front of me. I don't think I could have done the whole thing again, but it certainly hadn't destroyed me.
The time according to my watch (which I'd started as I crossed the start line) was 1:58.48. The official clock had me at 1:59.15. I was really pleased. Actually, I was really ridiculously pleased. It felt like a real achievement.
As we walked back to Race HQ, Tony and me discussed the race in detail. Anyone overhearing our conversation would have assumed we were running nerds. But we aren't. We're cool. I certainly don't feel any need to tell a couple of thousand strangers about everything that happened in the race in elaborate and boring detail.
I thanked Tony for the energy gel and he said "God they were weird weren't they. All sticky and warm. It was like someone masturbating into your mouth." Then after some seconds he added, "You know, I expect."
Like I say: He isn't kinky.
