‘Can I help you?’ said the surly train guard. I responded with a polite ‘thank you, no, I’m waiting for the train and to use the toilet’. ‘Keep away from the yellow line’ she replied, spun on her heel and stormed off. She clearly believed me to be suicidal and ready to hurl myself under a South Eastern Railway train. Perhaps she knew how badly my race had gone or how little I liked South Eastern Railway.
I was tempted to nip indoors and assure her that despite a bad run I wasn’t ready to kill myself but my urgent need to unburden my bowels of their content won out and I stood quietly in the queue.
Anyway let me roll back a few hours – I had travelled to Greenwich Park to participate in the RunThrough 10km. I arrived nice and early, had a flat white in Blackheath, did some warming up and collected my number when registration opened.
All very easy.
As I’m sure many of you will know Greenwich Park is not a 10km park, using the twists and turns you can get a decent 5km out of it and then do that twice – the bad news was that the good people of RunThrough decided instead on three shorter loops which were okay but a lot less interesting than say the Movember or the Tough runs that also take part in Greenwich.
I did a slow loop of the course as part of my warm up and felt reasonable despite another poor nights sleep and a back that was in agony from a poor sleeping position. Post loop I drifted as I always do to the back of the start line and awaited the starting gun.
Boom.
With the Ridgeway Challenge less than a week away this was only ever intended to be a leg stretcher but I was enjoying the knowledge that this would be amongst the shorter races I would complete this year. At 3km I was feeling pretty good, I admired the giant ship in a bottle and prepared for the ascent into lap 2 and then cramping happened.
Bloody hell my left calf muscle had simply stopped being muscle and become like depleted uranium – very fecking dense. I kept the pace going as I was set for about a 42 minute 10km at this point but within a few hundred metres I had ground to a halt.
In my head I could hear the two arguments
- The first was provided to me in the voice of @ultrarunnerdan ‘so stop, don’t risk the ridgeway, show some common sense!’
- The second was in the voice of UltraBaby ‘go dad run, no chop choo’
Well as much as I think Dan is awesome he’s always going to play second fiddle to my daughter and so I pressed on, mercifully I was still able to run through the pain but it felt like much harder work than it should have.
Now while I should probably have stopped at the shorter 5km distance given that I was now crawling to a reasonably pathetic pace I instead continued to amble round and up and down Greenwich Park until I reached the final sprint. It was with all the effort I could muster I pressed home to catch the 10 or 12 runners ahead of me and ensure this didn’t feel like a complete waste of time.
At this point I’d normally hang around to cheer runners in but with medal around my neck I stomped off, I was in bad mood and just wanted to catch a train and make my appointment with the rail guard and commit to a giant dump in her station toilet – that’ll teach her for being a bellend.
It sounds like UltraBoyRuns didn’t enjoy himself, that can’t be right – can it?
I had been considering the Run Through events for a little while and although I’m glad I did it I don’t think I’ll be going back – well not unless they start allowing buggy runners.
There were a lots of positives though – it was very well organised, well attended, included in the price race photography, they paid to have the toilets in Greenwich Park opened up for runners use (free of charge instead of rummaging round for a 20 pence ), flapjacks and bananas by the bucketload, good social media and communications, relatively inexpensive with a small but bespoke medal as a memento – sounds pretty good so why would I hesitate to go back?
The thing was I felt out of place, there was a lot of posturing from individuals about how fast they were or how hungover they were. People seemed to stick to their little groupings and perhaps I’ve been spoilt by the ultra community but this had a very different feel, not bad – just different. It may also be the fact I don’t enjoy tarmac anymore or maybe it’s because it wasn’t a longer distance – I’m not sure but ultimately it wasn’t for me.
The most disappointing thing though was the route and I believe if this took in more of the park then the race itself would really benefit – 2 laps, more in and out, up and down. Other race organisers have used a wider spread of the park which I feel gives the runners a a better event as well as a grander atmosphere.
That said the volunteers/staff were all incredibly enthusiastic and committed to getting you round in the most positive fashion and they were a real credit to the organisers. I’d like to finish on a positive for RunThrough events by saying if you’re looking for a no fuss 10km in London then these are worth checking out at www.runthrough.co.uk
UltraBoyRuns 