Brentwood Multi-mile Marathon, 25/10/09, Chicked or Treat
Running a 10k, half-marathon and marathon over the same one-mile loop course at the time sounds like a recipe for disaster. Put that loop in the middle of a country park renowned for its heavy clay soil and general muddiness and it’s certainly a recipe for adventure. Make the loop as “undulating” as you can and you can guarantee a real challenge. Fortunately we had a glorious day following a dry week, and only one spot got badly churned up as we all went round and round.
I was down visiting my parents and was attracted to this because I have a vague notion of wanting to run a 100k – which tend to be lots and lots of small laps – so I wanted to know what running a lapped race would be like. I’d not expected the course to be hilly. Basically it was a triangle – one side was a steep climb of perhaps 100 yards followed by some undulations, the next a step descent through woodland and then more gently down across a field, the last a long gradual pull. 26 – or 27! – laps meant 52 or 54 hills to climb. So this was like doing 4 hrs of hill reps. Last week’s cross-country was a good warm-up! Given I’ve only done one long run in the last two months…
The start was designed to get the “.2” out of the way first. So the marathon started alongside the 10k, with the half marathon 100 yards ahead – perhaps 200 runners in all. The marathoners congregated at the back – but most of the 10kers turned out to be casual runners, so the fields mingled right from the off. We’d caught up the back of the half marathon field within the first half mile, and from that point it was just impossible to tell who was in which race - except at the start and finish of each lap, where the three fields were supposed to separate into different lanes to make the lapcounters life bearable. I started slow – 8.06 for the first mile – but couldn’t see many folk pulling rapidly away. Didn’t cross my mind until later that the fast marathoners probably started in the front row with the 10k leaders… At the end of the first lap I saw two folk perhaps 50 yards ahead going through the marathon lane, and set a pace to follow them – a wee lassie (who turned out to be first lady) and a big bloke in bright yellow. This was tricky since we were all working our way through the half marathon field, so they would drift in and out of sight depending on how many runners were between us. By lap 3 we also started lapping the back of the 10k field – some brave overweight souls already reduced to walking up the steeper of the two climbs.
One of the advantages of the lap system is that drinks are on offer every mile. And you can pick up a bottle, take a few mouthfuls and drop it, only to pick it up again next time round and so on. And you can change kit when you want. I went passed first lady at the end of lap 5 – having been amused for two laps watching her try to remove a base layer from under her vest whilst still running, she finally stopped briefly at the kit bag. Big yellow bloke followed two laps later – “big” not being suited for all the climbing. And then I couldn’t see any one I knew was in the same race as me. But there was always a line of folk ahead to overtake – thinning out a little as the 10k finished after the first hour, and a lot after the half finished in the second hour, but still the line ahead was endless.
Because this was basically on grass, with lots of corners and constant changes of gradient, it was hard to get into a running rhythm – but the laps settled into a rhythm of their own. Slow up the steep hill, speed up on the undulations, open the legs and fly down the steep downhill, carry the speed as far as possible across the field, recover up the long incline, and round again. The changes – and the vistas over the rest of the park – kept it interesting, and I was very pleased with my consistency – after the first lap, the next ten splits were all within five seconds of 7:42 pace. I went through the half in 1:40 – checking with the lapcounters they agreed I’d reached halfway at this point - and was finding the time to remember I was supposed to be doing this for fun.
The laps ticked off. Getting up the hills was becoming a pain. I was telling myself I wasn’t going to walk until the 10k folk had finished – then it was not until the half way point – then it was not until 20 laps… The cost of this was the pace slowly dropping, and it becoming harder and harder to open up and sprint when the downhill came. But ultra running teaches you both that bad patches are inevitable, and that they disappear again after a while. Then on lap 19 disaster struck, in that I was lapped for the first time. I’d been wondering whereabouts I was in the race, and no doubt been kidding myself on given the number of folk I’d been lapping, but I hadn’t realised how much was psychologically at stake here. I kept running – but that was a 10.14 lap as I expected a train of fast folk to fly past. But no-one else did and lap 20 I was back in gear – 8:27. On lap 22 a tall blue chap loped past – I’d overtaken him earlier, so we were on the same lap, but I couldn’t respond. Then on lap 24 I was “chicked” as the first lady went back past (a new word taught me by the lady herself – apparently a term of art in Essex running!). I wasn’t having that – I’m sorry I’m revealing myself as a chauvinist pig here – and having confirmed that we both had two laps to go, attacked up the 25th steep hill with such vigour that I also caught up loping blue on the following downhill. Unless you are Willie Jarvie on Harris, a mile and a half out is a little early to start the sprint finish, but once you’re committed…. And I was back to the dizzy speeds of 8 minute miling…
Coming back through the start/finish, I yelled “one to go” at the lap counters. They yelled back “you’re doing well. 3rd place but 2 laps to go”. Locked in my sprint, I was already disappearing, but yelled back “Rubbish – last lap”. With loping blue and first lady not far behind, the threat of yet another climb up that steep hill, and already into my final spurt, I spent a lap being cross, worried and confused. Getting back to the finish area they yelled at me to keep going – and it was clearly not the time to stop and argue – so off I went again, much to the confusion of the two behind me. But the 27th lap was actually one of the easiest, since I’d managed to turn all my feelings into anger, and that seems to work very well as a power source! I’d finished 5th in 3:35 – the extra lap having cost me two places and eight minutes.
Much discussion at the finish – helped very much by first lady confirming she hadn’t lapped me, and by the bloke who finished third nobly showing the organisers that his garmin had run 0.9 miles less than mine – and the organisers agreed to promote me up the order. The formal results have me finishing in the same time as first lady – but I can live with that – hey, I got a pot, and what else could you want? The guy who won was given a time of 2:53 – but I don’t think he lapped me more than once, and I wonder if he escaped with less laps than necessary: certainly there’s talk on the web of some of the half runners only running 12 laps, and the guy who came second said he was fairly sure he also ran 27. But given the scale of the challenge, the organisation was actually first class – well signed, well-marshalled, nice stuff at the aid station, good stuff available before and after the race, results up the same day – especially given this was a smallish charity event and no-one would come here looking for a fast time if they knew anything about the course beforehand.
Compared to a road marathon, my feet and legs have recovered very much faster – but hills have destroyed my “core”: Bert is right to insist we all do our sit-ups if we want to run the hills better than he does!
Report and photos Richard Dennis
