On Sunday I took part in my first club event, the Scottish Cross Country Championships in Calendar Park, Falkirk. This was the last in the same series of events that included the Cumbernauld Park XC that I reported on before. This time instead of spectating and supporting Kata, I was taking part myself.
Ready to go and blissfully ignorant of what was to come.
The weather was pretty dreadful on Sunday morning and I packed waterproof jacket, waterproof trousers, three pairs of socks, two pairs of shoes, a fleece, a hat, gloves, thermal top, and a hat. I needed everything….and more!
Kata dropped me off at Brian’s house where we were picked up and driven to the event by fellow Hunters Bog Trotter, James. Thanks, James! We arrived in good time to watch the girls race. It was fun to watch and to support our team mates, the weather however, was getting worse. My feet were frozen, my gloves were soaked through and my fingers like icicles. I was fully waterproofed against the rain that was by now turning to sleet, but nothing could keep out the damp, cold, misery. Some others looked and felt even worse than me. I deliberately jogged between sections of the track to try to get some warmth back into my toes. The mud! Oh, God, the mud! Everything was covered in mud. I had my kitbag in a black bin-bag to try to keep it dry, but the bin-bag was covered in mud, the kitbag was covered in mud. Mud, everywhere. Mud. There was I am afraid to say some negativity emanating from the men while we watched and waited. Thoughts were expressed along the lines of giving up running and taking up some other hobby, something indoors perhaps, maybe chess. I heard someone say, “and the thing is, we don’t even NEED to be here”. It’s true. We all chose to stand there, ankle deep in mud in the freezing rain. Worse – we PAID for it!
Starting to realise what I'd let myself in for.
The womens race was, despite the conditions, great viewing and there were some very impressive runs from the girls in brown. Two laps of the course made up 8km for the girls (more of that later). Joint founder of Most Runningist Year Ever, Rachel, finished in 17thth place, an amazing improvement of 156 places since last year. HBT were leading the race pretty much the whole way thanks to Rosie who was cruelly beaten in the last 200m by a runner from Edinburgh AC. Credit to the winner who ran a brilliant tactical race, but it was a devastating way to finish. Still an incredible run from Rosie and a proud achievement for her and the club.
After a very quick change out of my wet, muddy clothes and into my shorts and vest (with thermal top underneath) it was time to start the men’s race. Taking off my waterproofs and changing into shorts was in defiance of all my Darwinian survival instincts that allowed my ancestors to survive famine, plague, war, and Scottish weather. Standing on the start line, we were warned by the organisers about the conditions (as if we hadn’t noticed) and were advised not to do anything drastic. I suggested to Brian who was standing next to me that leaving the house this morning was drastic! Brian concurred and further suggested that taking his jacket off was drastic! How we laughed. Or cried. I can’t remember.
Yup!
The starter pistol fired and we were underway. 100m in and still a closely bunched pack, we all run straight through a water logged section of the course which was greeted with great cheers from everyone. 200m in and it was up a short steep hill that provided the first challenge due to it being to all intents and purposes, a mud slide. Or at least I thought it as a mud slide then, you should have seen it on lap 3! A tight, acute angled bend at about 500m and I was nearly down already. I slipped on the mud (did I mention the mud already) and only still being in a pack of runners kept me on my feet. I’m afraid that I bumped into a few and used them to avoid an early mud bath. I learned my lesson from this and it was the only time I nearly fell. The pack started to spread out a bit at about 2km and I felt I was doing OK. I completed my first 1km in 4:25 but this was a very false time as you just can’t compare one section of the course to another – not in XC. Each lap was 4km and the boys did 3 of these (more of that still later).
Uh huh!
This is the route…
There was one wide, long, straight section of the course that I absolutely hated. At this section more than the others, it seemed as if the course had suffered weeks of shelling ahead of an advance across no man’s land. Throw in some barbed wire and some sandbags and the illusion would have been complete. I had no idea how best to tackle this section. First lap I hugged the left to try to find some grass, second lap I hugged the right for the same reason, third lap I just went straight through the middle. All routes were equally difficult. It was of course a very challenging race and despite everything, mostly enjoyable. The other part of the course worth highlighting was a VERY steep, very short hill at about 3km. By lap 3 it was very difficult indeed to get up it and I slipped back down before managing at the second attempt. Funnily enough, while I was on my hands and picking myself up for another attempt, a spectator shouted “HBT!” at me. No idea who he was, but I appreciated the shout and gave him a nod as I made it to the top. Thanks, guy! The support in general was great and Carrie seemed to be everywhere around the course shouting us on. It really did help a lot.
Freezing girls preparing to get muddy
Katherine and outgoing "Golden Trotter", Mairead
That's Amelia on the left
That looks like Amelia on the right.
I know we are supposed to be racing the other clubs, Carnethie, Edinburgh AC, etc., but I can’t help but compare myself with other runners that I know, and that means my team mates. I tried to keep up and compete with David Hope Jones but he got away from me and I couldn’t keep up. In the end he finished about 1 minute ahead of me. I had a good race with Andrew who I passed about 3 times before finally finishing about 1 minute ahead of him. I was passed at about the 2.5km stage by a brown vest and as I turned my head to say “well done” I was surprised to see that it was a girl that had passed me! That in itself is not surprising as I am a very average runner and there are a lot of very good girls in HBT, but the girl’s race had finished about 20 mins ago had it not? I learned later that a few of the girls ran the male race AS WELL as the female race in a sort of passive aggressive protest it the disparity of distances (women’s 8km vs men’s 12km). I will make no comment on the act of deciding as a woman that you are going to run the men’s race other than to say that it made no difference to my race or my life. I hear that they were asked not to cross the finish line which seems like a fair request, but I don’t know if they did or not.
I found this very interesting article on the disparity between male and female race distances…
Frankly I find it hard to believe that the writer asked some of her peers about running the same distance as the men and was told by those women that,
“Oh, because we can't. We're weaker and slower than men, so this distance protects us.”
I’m sorry, I’m not buying that. I think that there must be at least some paraphrasing going on there. It sounds sarcastic. When I read that I imagined a Victorian woman swooning, fluttering their eyelashes, tilting their head back, and holding the back of their hand to their forehead.
Some of the men (including me), suggested that we should indeed run the same distances and that distance should be 8km!!!! J
Sums up in one picture what 1000 words couldn't. Not my picture, but it was taken at the event
In the end I finished (with a headache) in 55:35, 431st out of 571. That’s a lot further down the field than I am used to being recently, but I have to say that the competition was a lot stronger. The winner finished in an unreal 38:06. That’s 12km. In 38 minutes. Through a quagmire. It defies belief. My 10km road race PB is 42:30. If I extended that to 12km I’d be doing very well to finish in 51 mins. I’m not going to consider or expand on the numbers any further because it’s just mind boggling. So anyway, maybe 55:35 isn’t too bad and it sets down a marker for next year! I actually only narrowly avoided being lapped as I was about 1 minute or maybe 1 minute 30 seconds into my third and final lap when I heard the announcement of the winner crossing the line.
Despite the adverse and challenging conditions, I did enjoy myself. I wouldn’t want to be the guy that cleaned the showers (the wonderful, wonderful, hot, wonderful showers) after we were finished with them. Mud was everywhere, up the walls, everywhere. It looked like a there had been a massacre at the Glastonbury Festival. Once showered we took advantage of the Falkirk Harriers club house where pints were on tap for only £2.50. A couple of well deserved pints and I headed back to Edinburgh. I discovered on the drive back that James had prepared for the race by eating a breakfast of 4 (four) hot cross buns! Given his impressive run I have decided that this is the future and I am going to experiment with all kinds of baked confectionary for breakfast. Today - fudge doughnuts, tomorrow – empire biscuits. I expect to be running 4 minute miles by next month. Either that or diabetic.
