Henley Half

Enough time has passed since Sunday's race to allow me to develop a certain amount of detachment and not dissolve into a puddle of damp-eyed self-pity.

It was bad and most of the time I was my mind was completely filled with thoughts like: 'I am not enjoying this.' 'This is not fun.' 'What am I doing?' 'When will this be over?' For me the race was about survival and not quitting; rescuing a certain amount of self respect through stubbornness. It shouldn't have been that way but sometimes things conspire and all you can do is just get through.

The background is very simple. I made a late decision to run the race and although I had not trained specifically for it I was in fairly good shape and was confident I could give it a good crack. I completely ignored being surrounded by sickness and people coughing and spluttering: why should I catch anything?. On Friday I was not at all worried; in fact I so relaxed I wanted to find a butcher's dog just to compare fitness levels. However by Saturday the outlook changed as I started coughing.

I had a decision to make. Things were not too bad, I wasn't dying and I do so few races I didn't want to abandon. Once signed-up that's it. On the other hand what is the point if you are unwell? It does no good and nobody is let-down if you don't turn-up. What is more the time, if you do run, is meaningless. Common sense says no, stupidity says yes. So I, of course, went with stupidity.

Once that was decided everything else then fell into place by going wrong. All the little things multiplied until nothing was right. It started with being a little late leaving and getting stuck in the frozen traffic of Henley. Nothing was moving and it was getting nearer and nearer start time and all the time I was getting anxious so that my judgement was completely clouded as I rushed to the start to collect my number and so left the safety pins in the car and had to go back. The toilets, of course had huge queues and I was desperate for a pee but there was a hedge, so that was OK. (One of the interesting differences between races in England and Canada is that in Canada peeing outside is seen as anti-social, but they provide a lot of portable toilets. In England there is always a line of men peeing I a hedge). Anyway I managed to get to the start but found I had left my heart rate strap at home - not an essential but I like to use it in the first 20 minutes to make sure I start at an easy pace. Just another indication that it was not going to be my day.

The race started and immediately I knew it would be difficult. Although I could keep my legs going, they had no strength. Right from the beginning I started to wonder whether I could finish. In one ear was the siren voice telling me to give up and in the other was the voice of duty telling me to resist temptation and not give in. My only tactic was to keep a rhythm but not push anything: circle the legs and just keep moving forward. This worked for the first half but at 8 miles there is a hill that goes on and on and on. It is tough and I could not run it at all. I knew it was beyond me and so I had to trudge slowly to the top. After that the downhill was fun and the run to the end flat but all my energy reserves were completely spent.

It was a slow time, slower than the halfway point in any marathon I have run but at least I finished. In terms of my self esteem that was ridiculously important. I had to prove to myself that I could finish what I had started. I took consolation from the fact that I did.

Since then I have been ill, coughing continually, throat torn and sore, head achy and dull, with time passing in a muzzy haze (which is the main reason I haven't written this report sooner). I think it will be a couple of weeks before I attempt any type of exercise. I will ease back with some slow easy runs to remind myself that running can be enjoyable and life enhancing. Then I will take myself to one side to tell myself that just because I run it does not mean I have to be stupid as well. After which the experience of Sunday will then have been assimilated and I will move on.

I might even do the race again next year because, paradoxically I would recommend the Henley Half. It might not be a course for a PB, because of the hill, but the scenery is pretty, the course interesting, I love the river and the challenge of the hill is character building.

Royal Victoria Marathon - About the race

We were very lucky this year in that the weather was perfect – light was clear, air was still and temperature crisp. The course could not have been presented any better and a naturally beautiful location was lifted. At times you could look out over the flat ocean with its gradations of blue merging into the sky and feel a wave of contentment, even when your body was complaining of abuse.

You can see from the map that the route takes full advantage of Victoria's sea bound location, with its natural harbour and a series of bays and inlets. Most of the time it follows the coastal roads, with many views over the sea. My clearest visual memories of the course are these views, especially as the water was still and offered a glimpse of serenity. Amongst those snapshots are a bay full of yachts and a golf course overlooking the ocean. As I was returning through the golf course a couple crossed the road, pulling their trolleys, chatting and looking very relaxed. I contrasted their pastime with mine. I was aching and trying to remember the reasons for running long, whereas they were at their ease. They even had great scenery to appreciate. Damn I thought there must be some way my game is better than theirs (but at this stage I could even see the attractions of fishing so I knew my thought processes weren't right). Then I went to the next view and the next and I remembered the satisfaction of being physically challenged and doing something that feels hard. The golf course was left well behind.

It route also went through parkland and some interesting housing, which towards the top was quite swanky. In other words there was no dead patch, no stretches of featureless streets or repetitive buildings that make the mental battle just that little bit harder. This is quite a feat for 26 miles of city running.

The support along the way was fun. The volunteers were very good at cheering and clacking us on and there were plenty other people out along the way, some of them sitting outside their houses in their camping seats. Amongst the supporters I remember an old Chinese guy slowly shaking a water bottle half full of rice, almost as if he was doing tai chi. If only I had thought about him a bit more I could have taken the lesson that you can get there more effectively with a with a steady easy rhythm. Later on there was a woman beating with a stick on an empty plastic tub shouting “ You can do it. Attain your dreams. Remember you decided to do this thing.” She made me laugh as I remembered this actually was my choice. But all along the course people offered support. My race number also had my name printed on it and when someone shouted out “Looking strong David, when I felt anything but strong, it actually made me feel better.

Instead of carrying a sign the pace bunnies just wore rabbit ears. They could get away with such a relatively discrete indicator because the field wasn't that large at something over 2,000 people. This is a good size, large enough to stop it getting lonely yet small enough to allow everyone to run their own race unimpeded

At the end there was a food alley where you could load up with apples, bananas, muffins, bagels, cookies, doughnuts and chocolate milk. I came out with my hands overflowing with carbohydrate goodness.

Overall it felt like a friendly, civilised race. All the way round I kept on thinking how much I liked the place but the impression was cemented at the end when, after I had crossed the line, the race organiser shook my hand and thanked me for coming to Victoria. He did this for everybody and I found it an overwhelming decent gesture. Somehow it made the whole race seem personal.

Royal Victoria Marathon - How we did

This was a family run. My wife and niece ran the 8k, my sister and brother in law the half marathon and I ran the marathon. The performances ranged from better than hoped, on schedule, and a bit behind the curve.

The triumph was the 8k. This was my wife's first race and she had trained for it very conscientiously. On the kitchen noticeboard was a schedule from Runners World with every session ticked off (I am full of admiration of her ability to decide on a course of action and then keep to it). Even so she was nervous and not sure what to expect. My niece on the other hand has previously run races but had done no training. As she is young a generally fit this was not too much of a problem and they went round the course together 6 minutes faster than target time. A big hurrah that got bigger when we found out my wife finished 10th in her age category.

The Half marathon was pretty much to plan (again my sister and brother-in-law are also pretty good at keeping to a schedule). It was their first race at this distance and ran together. Their aim was 2 hours and they achieved 2.01, which is just about spot on. I actually saw them on the run at a point where the marathon and half marathon met, going in opposite directions. They looked to be running strongly and I am sure their next race will see their time drop.

My race was slower than I wanted but as I did not have any great expectations I felt quite satisfied. A persistent ankle problem meant my training had been more about keeping going rather than pushing things too hard and so I knew I did not have the endurance for a strong race. I started with three possible outcomes in mind; If everything went super well 4.15 might be possible, the realistic target was somewhere around 4.30,but the main objective was to keep going. So coming in at 4.38 was OK, actually it was better than that as I felt very happy that I had completed, even if I had been outrun by an eighty year old woman (side note: Betty Jean McHugh set a world record for her age category by finishing in 4.36).

More than getting round I thought I had learnt a number of lessons:

The first was that run/walk (10 minutes run, one minute walk) is a good strategy, which helped, at the very least, to make the first half comparatively comfortable. It seems to be more common in Canada than back home and so it was easy to take the breaks as there were lots of us doing it. When you are fresh it feels like a slightly unwelcome interruption because you feel good and don't want to break-up the rhythm but as you go on you appreciate the breaks and look forward to the change. Dividing the race up into small chunks of time is also a good mental strategy as you can focus on getting to the next break rather than looking at the number of miles till the end. The major problem I had was with the water stations. They did not fit the time schedule. I took them as extra breaks because I am not very good with paper cups but I was always slightly confused by what to do.

So lesson number two is to run with my own drinks. On long runs I normal use a Camelback and find it relatively comfortable. In no way would it slow me down and it would mean I could timetable my own breaks. Using drinks for fuel would also overcome lesson number three: I do not like gels. Because my training runs were not that long I didn't practice with gels enough and the extra I had to take for a marathon were distinctly unappetising.

Lesson number four was about my running style. I observed two distinct ways of moving. My normal style is fairly relaxed, with a forefoot/midfoot landing and looking ahead. The more tired I get the more my stride shortens and I stiffen up until I am shuffling along, striking with my heel, and looking at the ground, which is uncomfortable as well as slow but don't feel I can do anything else. The lesson is to work systematically on extending the time I can run normally in training. When things start to go bad I will have to use a mantra of saying “Relax, relax, ease out” and also “Look up”.
Lesson five is about music – it helped. I used my Ipod from 1 hour 45 and found it a good distraction. I had it on shuffle (which was quite appropriate given my running style) so I didn't know what was coming next and I liked the surprises – who knew that Tom Waites could make you feel good when running?

Lesson six was a reinforcement of something I usually try to do: look around and appreciate the surroundings. In this race looking at the sea made me feel happy and I had no need of the mental trick I sometimes use, which is to picture my home run and imagine the familiar sights of the canal.

The final lesson was about accepting your own performance. Towards the end someone shouted out “You're nearly there now , you can start to feel good” “Not if you have a target” someone muttered to herself rather bleakly. I wanted to try to talk her round but I knew it was futile but anyway she was ahead of me and I did not feel motivated enough to catch her up. But she made me realise that although I was not going to be proud of my time I was going to be proud of having done the race and to me that felt important.