Not quite a running cyborg (yet)

When I entered the EnduranceLife South Devon coastal marathon back in October, I had visions of standing on the start line feeling like a supercharged running machine. By then, with the way I was going to train, I’d be crushing the miles, building fitness like I’d never known. I’d take a small marathon like this and chew it up and spit it out. OK, I knew I was unlikely to win, but top five was a possibility. Who else was going to be training like me, with a 3,100-mile race in mind? Top 10 at the very least.

But alas, this running machine image I keep projecting on the horizon continues to be rather elusive. I have, as regular readers of my Monday Musings newsletter will know, been slowly increasing my training, and in January I ran over 200 training miles in a month for the first time. The slowly, slowly build up approach has meant I haven’t got injured, which is crucial, but 100-mile weeks still seem a long way off.

While I haven’t been injured, there have been a couple of bouts of illness in the last few months to slow down my progress. Nothing serious, just a few coughs and colds, but one of them was just this week. In fact, I didn’t run a step the whole week until the race started, and in the van on the way to the start I was still coughing and spluttering. I was hardly a vision of that invincible running cyborg destroyer I’d pictured.

The weather was perfect for running though, cool and still, and the ground was fairly dry, as we lined up in a field behind Beesands beach on the south coast of England. I felt fairly calm as we started the countdown. Often I get quite nervous, but this time I wasn’t thinking ahead, stressing or putting pressure on myself to do well. I’d run this race once before, so my first goal was to beat my previous time (4hrs 44mins) and my second goal was to go under 4hrs 30mins - simply because it was the next round number down.

But with the week of coughing and feeling ill, I didn’t know what would happen. I might get two miles in and have to stop and walk back to the start.

These tempered expectations meant that I started out fairly steadily, just cruising along without pushing myself too much, making ground on the downhills - as is my wont - simply by letting myself go, and then not pushing too hard at any other times.

As everyone started to settle into their positions over the first few miles, a few runners skirted past me at a fair pace. I started playing a game of trying to predict which ones would come back to me later in the race. Two in particular seemed, to me, to be overcooking it. They were both younger - maybe in their late 20s - both were wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and they seemed a little less wiry than some of the others. I was wearing shorts and T-shirt and I’m not particularly wiry, so I wasn’t judging. In fact, it was the way they reminded me of me, with their high energy early running, that made me think they were going to struggle later on - as I usually do.

In the event, one of them I caught fairly quickly - at about 20km - and he was already struggling. He tried to cling on to me for a while after I passed him - another thing I would try to do - but it was no use. He had a world of pain lying out there in wait for him.

The other guy I thought I must have got wrong, because as I carried on fairly steadily, serenely even, for most of the race, taking in the views of the calm, empty coves, rolling down and up the inland valleys, through rutted green lanes, he didn’t reappear. Until about 38km. I hadn’t seen anyone for a while when I turned a corner and suddenly there he was, a figure in a yellow T-shirt, shuffling painfully along. Ah ha. Bingo, I thought.

He took off his headphones as I went by and we both encouraged each other. “You’re smashing it,” he said as I moved ahead. Ah, the number of times I’ve been that guy, wondering how these older guys do it, coming past me near the end of races, looking strong, looking calm. I guess finally I’m starting to mature as a long-distance runner. Finally I can hold back when someone passes me in the early part of a race, and then be that guy looking controlled and moving well at the end.

It was only in the last mile or so that I started to feel the pain of the race in my legs. I started looking back over my shoulder. Having passed Mr Yellow T-shirt and become that runner I’d always envied, I didn’t want him now to suddenly come back past me. That would ruin my narrative.

People cheered me on as I neared the finish, but while before I’d been smiling back and making jokes, now I was in a tunnel vision. Just keep moving, keep running. I felt like I was standing at the entrance to the pain cave, but with only a few minutes left to run, it was OK, I wasn’t going inside. Push, push, push, and I was there. Perfect timing.

In the end I finished exhausted, but without any crisis or drama. I didn’t cry, or cramp up. It was a long, tough run. But that was it. Job done.

My finishing time of 4hrs 34mins was fine. Progress from two years ago. Not a huge amount, but still progress. And a time good enough for 10th place in the race - and the first runner over 45 years old, which, having just read Richard Askwith’s book The Race Against Time, suddenly meant something to me. Considering I’m 48, to win the over 45 age group was a decent result. I felt proud enough to post about it online. There’s life in the old dog yet. 

Let’s hope a lot more life, though. As this is just the beginning.