Get On, Clip In, Fall Off

Flat and fastish

My last pre-marathon "are my legs working?" test was today - the Oxford Town and Gown 10k. This is officially a charity fun run through the streets of Oxford, but as it also has an SEAA road race permit and a measured course they don't seem to mind having people along who aren't going to be doing it dressed as Wombles. It's officially described as "fast and flat", which is one of those clichéd terms used to describe courses (like "gently undulating" and "testing"). The start was chaotic - the race HQ was in the University Parks with the start on Fyfield Road nearby. Getting from A to B involved squeezing 4000 people through a narrow alleyway which seemed to be closed for a while. We all milled around a bit and I found myself behind a couple of guys wearing T-shirts saying "It takes guts to win.. and we've got them!", which I deciphered as "We have just disembowelled Haile Gebrselassie". I don't think I saw them again after the start. When we were finally allowed through I was still working my way through the back of the start towards the 40-45 minute markers when, oh, the race started. Well, that was sudden.

Having a thousand people in front of you who haven't paid any attention to the need to space themselves at the start based on finish time is a bit of a pain, to say the least. The fact that the race was chip timed made the fact that I took a minute and a half to cross the start line marginally less annoying, but there was still a lot of traffic to negotiate before hitting a clear bit of road.

The congested race meant I was never entirely comfortable - there was always someone to sneak past or a bit of pavement-hopping needed to escape a bunch of people who looked like they wanted to expound the "let's all hold hands and go as fast as the slowest person wants to!" school, and passing the 8km marker I decided to just hold on for a reasonable finish rather than chasing a PB. However, the 9th km went nice and fast so with a big push all the way through the tenth km (conveniently on the tail of a guy who was about as fast as me and panting so loudly that I could have closed my eyes and pretended I was racing Emil Zatopek) and a final all-out sprint up the finishing straight I just managed to shave, at least by my watch, 5 seconds off my PB - 42:35. What my official chip time will be I don't know, but that's the time I'm writing down anyway.

This is not a world-shaking time, but it's good for me, and tells me that I should at least finish a marathon in under ten hours next weekend. My knee was very angry at me for a while after today's finish, but the last couple of k's had been run very fast indeed (again, fast for me) and I don't think I'll be getting anywhere near that pace next Sunday. My name, after all, is not Paula.