London Marathon Training Week 12 of 14
I have run faster, I have not run harder.
The Road Relays. Hardly anyone gets it. It’s the most niche thing ever. But that doesn’t matter.
I LOVE team sports. I love playing in a team. I learnt teamwork from the Kenyans. I’ve helped build an impressive team of runners at the Track Treborth. My main motto is ‘company beats specificity’, I get the kids I coach to shout out “TEAM WORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK”.
But running a race is a solitary thing. Even if you’re in the middle of thousands of marathon runners, no one can carry you. And there is nothing lonelier than running up in the mountains through the night, alone. I’ve got a lot of love for that.
Running for team Kent AC at the road relays every year, gets my heart racing, and triumphing over the burn, more than anything else in the calendar. Last year I scraped through into the team by the skin of my teeth. On the day I managed to run the fastest leg. And I say this just to demonstrate how much this race means to me and what sort of performance it can bring out. I love running. I love team sports. So I love the road relays.
I’ve been able to line up for the A team every year for the past 10 years, the only member of Kent AC to have done so. And it’s not an easy thing to do. I can’t think of anything else that I have been so consistent at. Of course I want my spot on the 2023 A team.
We’ve had medals in the Southerns but never, in our 125 year history, have we medaled in the Nationals. Our best placing was 6th (I was there obvs). No medals. No money. Certainly no fame.
This spring, the National 12 stage relays are fast approaching. Clubs from all over the UK select men or women for a 12 strong A team, and a 12 strong B team if they have the depth, to run 6 long legs (roughly 10K) and 6 short legs (roughly 5K) around Sutton Park in Birmingham. The result showcases the strongest running clubs in the UK.
There are a couple of key things different about THIS year.
- We have the best Kent AC team lining up in history
- I’m having ‘calf problems’ (I’m calling it calf problems because if I call it a calf injury or a calf tear – you and I can give up hope right now. And we’re not doing that are we?)
My consistency through the ages doesn’t give me a free pass. The team coach and captain are willing to give me a place if I can post a reasonable 10k time. Shouldn’t be too hard. But then I run a Personal Worst at Trafford 10k. So Nantwich 10k, 4 weeks later, looks like my final chance. I’m nursing this ‘calf problem’ that’s replaced a ham tear. I massage and rehab it. I hit the track on Tues but have to abandon after 1 lap.
Nantwich comes and goes and I’m not there. Facing my imminent deselection, I don’t want to go gentle into that good night. There’s one wheel on my wagon and I’m at last chance saloon: Dulwich parkrun. With 15 minutes until closing time. I have 10 days to get healthy but not lose fitness. Let me explain something: That’s nearly impossible for me right now. And terrifying. A perfect way, the only way, to live or die.
Just 15:20 of pain and I can earn a spot on our greatest team in history. Anything short of that and I’m out. It is brutally simple. And so is the preparation. I kick off my emergency 10 day training plan with a simple 140 miles in a week. All around 7-8min miling, slow enough not to pull my calf, but hopefully long enough to preserve my VO2max. Two days before the race I test out my calf. A session at target 5k pace; 2 x 1km. I am flat, flat out.
We drive to London on Thursday, and I rest all Friday. I have barely been so nervous for a race. I’m getting loads of messages from teammates who are gunning for me. I can’t sleep, I’m up every hour of the night to pee.
I’ve run Dulwich parkrun as part of training dozens of times. It’s 3 laps of the park, decent, flat. Perfect spring morning.
Chris can’t give me a place on the team, but he can give me the best chance possible to step up and take it. He pulls the team together for me. Jake paces me for 2 laps. Ken is there on the bike screaming at the other runners to get out of the way.
There is no hiding. Jake has taken me through the first mile in the low 4:40s. How do you run one mile as fast as you can, then hold on for another two miles? I’m finding out.
As I’m swerving round the lapped runners in those final meters, my legs are buckling. I am swimming, my chance is slipping. Ross jumps in, unplanned, to save me from drowning. I try to hold onto him, my vision is blurry. The pain is not the issue. Things are just shutting down on me. They won’t go any faster.
Finishing time: 15:29. I’m out. It isn’t even a difficult decision. I’ll be going to the 2023 National 12 Stage Relays. But not as a member of the A team. I’ll be water boy to the White Horses.
That afternoon, as my nose bleeds gently onto the picnic blanket, I’m feeling warm in the cold spring sun. To know that you gave your best with what you had, is a sweet and elusive feeling. The effort reflected the importance. I have run faster, I have not run harder.
I don’t need grieving time. I’m fully accepting of what just happened. But more than that, it meant so much to me to have my club rally around me when I needed them. It’s a privilege and a joy. I had nearly no hope, but I lined up anyway, and the team were there to support me.
This weekend, I’ll be there supporting them.
And we are not coming to fuck about.
Podcast I Listened To This Week
Russell Bentley is a runner from Great Britain. His marathon PB is 2h20, he also holds the Fastest Known Time for the Winter Paddy Buckley Round, despite being scared of the dark. But he oozes passion for running. Just what you need if you’re a coach! And this interview is all about that passion, from finding the love of running, to saying no to Carbon shoes, from running with Kenyans to being out in the hills of Snowdonia. Whether you enjoy running or you’ve never quite got to grips with it, hang on in there and listen to this. Russell might just make you want to get your trainers on.
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Russell you really pull heart strings. A great read.