Arbroath Academy PTA 10K, 01/06/08
Abroath HarbourI woke up on Sunday morning determined to emphasise the positive. Ok, I had a shin that felt as if someone was sticking blunt skewers into it at regular intervals and I had had my usual dreams about arriving at the race 10 minutes after the start and running (in slow motion, as if underwater) all the way round. But, on the bright side, at least my injury hadn’t yet got to the stage where I needed to be physically assisted down stairs, nor had I had to resort to the well-tested six-ibuprofen-a-day diet. So really, I had no need to feel remotely depressed. In fact, the weather looked reasonable: a little hot for my liking, but there was no wind, the birds were chirping (though they had unfortunately been doing so since 4am) and I wondered if the few clouds in the sky really had arranged themselves into two clear letters: PB. The previous day I’d done a “light” interval session - shopping, resting, shopping, resting with long recoveries – so I was sure I was in reasonable form. Besides, this was a very small local road race and, unlike my experience at the Great Edinburgh Run, would certainly be devoid of people waves, incessant bagpiping or (thank the Lord) a DJ blasting Robbie Williams for “entertainment” at the 5K mark. So, all was good.
Inevitably, it was a rare burst of optimism that proved ill-founded. I arrived at the race with an hour to spare (as a result of my dad’s remarkably efficient sat nav and a recurrence of my arriving-late nightmare). This gave me plenty of time to “soak up the atmosphere” (there wasn’t much of this yet, it has to be said). An “old-timer” was giving some sage advice to a newbie: “Aye, it’s a tough course mind. It’s pretty much uphill all the way to 5k, but never mind you get a fine rest on the way back!”. Already, I wasn’t looking forward to the fine rest. I had now learned two things that made my heart sink into my socks: it was an out-and-back course (so no damage limitation on the psychological front) and it was far from “undulating”, as it said in the race leaflet (I should have learned, by now, that in the running dictionary “undulating” is a euphemism for “massive, lung-busting hills”). My shin was complaining, my brain was complaining and, just as I was thinking wistfully about coffee and Sunday papers, a huge gust of wind almost blew the newly-raised START banner to Aberdeen. So – uphill, into the wind I went...
All things considered, it wasn’t a bad start. I tried to visualise being in the middle of one of Bert’s 1200m sessions to take my mind off the fact that I seemed to be on a road to nowhere. I was sporting new sunglasses which at least slightly dulled the hideous vision of the long and winding hill ahead – but there was no getting away from the fact that I was going up it. At 2k it felt a bit like being a graphic in a running video game and I sort of wished I would combust into pixels so that someone could just hang a “GAME OVER” sign in my place. It was very hot and very windy and, although I had moved up the field quite a bit, I still felt a bit like a flounder watching a shoal of the more aerobically able pass by.
Still, I was fairly sure I was second woman. There was a girl in a Fife AC vest not far in front of me: her legs were going like a racing bike, whereas mine seemed to have suffered a puncture. It was at this point that I first saw the man on the bike. I am fairly sure he must have been an injured runner since he spent the entire race going back and forth offering inspiring words of encouragement. “AYE, THAT’S GOOD RUNNING LASS KEEP IT GOING” he enthused, before cycling off to heckle another weakening body.
I noticed that I had completely failed to run any of the first four kilometres under four minutes and, by the time I got to the “water station” at 5K (after another gut-wrenching climb), I think it was fair to say I was finished. I had forgotten that, where plastic cups are involved, water stations are as much use as mirages in the desert, so by the time I had lost the remaining drips of fluid down the front of my vest, the girl in the Fife AC vest had opened a gap that then got bigger, and bigger and bigger. This must be what’s described as putting the boot in. My reactionary kick was about as effective as a soggy espadrille. From there on, I think the phrase “hanging on for dear life” just about sums it up. Basically, I was just trying not to stop and walk. Thankfully, I had the man on the bike to encourage me: “COME ON NOW LASS DIG IN, DIG IN”. The only thing I wanted to dig was a person-sized hole in the asphalt so that I could just disappear. At 7K I decided it was a good idea to try to catch a bloke in front, who looked to still have some legs about him. But he moved aside as soon as I tucked in behind him – possibly he was feeling as good as me, or perhaps it was just the annoying noise of my desperate gasps – so I had no choice but to soldier on without anything to focus on but the endless, endless road.
By this time, I thought the man on the bike might well be a hallucination because there he was again: “COME ON NOW, KEEP IT GOING, NOT FAR TO GO”. And there it was – the 9K mark that confirmed the fact that I was perhaps not going to die out here on this country road with only my imaginary cycling chum and a handful of severely fatigued runners as witness. I’m sure I lost around 20 seconds on the way back to the finish since the marshals at the turn back into town were having a fine chat and failed to notice my wrecked, sweating body hurtling towards them gesticulating wildly. “Oh aye, just up there lass,” said one, finally, and then I could “hear” the end of the race. Yes, it was a tiny local road race but there was still a DJ playing jolly and encouraging tunes that just about drowned out the groans of “triumph”. Somehow I did manage a final spurt towards the line. I was near collapse. In fact, I actually collapsed. I lay on the grass like a crumpled rubbish bag as my mother desperately tried to feed me a banana. I felt about two, but succumbed to being an invalid with some relish.
I was surprised to see that I had run 41.21 (though a bit disappointing since I’ve run just about the same at the last two races) and no other women had passed me, so I ended up second woman, which felt good, even though it was a good ten minutes before I felt able to stand up. I only realised how bad I actually felt when my dad insisted on eating a very pink, squelchy lorne sausage roll right in front of me. Still, I felt recovered enough later on to scoff mussels and chips, washed down by a fair bit of white wine, by which time the whole thing seemed like a fine way to spend a Sunday morning. Strange, that.
Report Melanie Henderson
Photos lucky dip
Arbroath from the air.
