11. The Name is Race. First Race

As much as enjoyable running alone might be, there comes a moment when you hope you’ll get to do it with others as well. To get to know people, so to speak. 

The year of the pandemic (at the moment of writing this it has already been promoted to the first year of the pandemic) cut many chances of participating in any contests, but not all of them. Large events with thousands of people - like Eindhoven’s marathon for instance - were simply off the table but some smaller ones went on. Such an event was the High Tech Campus run.

          

 

A few words about the campus, for those not that familiar with it (if you want to know more, the internet does wonders): It was founded by Philips a bit more than 20 years ago and it’s home (or side residence at least) to a few high tech companies, which is most probably the reason that they call it “the smartest square kilometre of Europe”. Not sure if it’s true, but certainly it’s very likely. Next to the companies and the brains, it’s a beautiful place in itself, featuring a lake where a couple of swans can brood their eggs, small bridges and lovely alleys where we can have a Dutch rondje after lunch if the time and weather allow. For the sportsman in us, there are a few floodlit tennis courts and a football pitch that’s often the theatre of some very exciting cricket games - another sign of the close to 100 nations melting pot the campus is.

In this natural environment, the campus management decided it was safe to keep the tradition and defined a 2.5km route around the lake, to be run 2, 4, or 6 times, depending on your choice. Mine was 10k and I began the training looking forward to it…

The nice thing about long distance training is that it follows more or less the same pattern, irrespective of the distance. Of course, you’ll have to train more for a marathon than for 10k, but the cycles are similar: start the week easy, then in the middle have some interval/surges/fartleks (in less expensive lingo: alternate running fast with recovery), then at the end of the week - go long (just do kilometres, don’t look at the clock). To me, it fit like a glove. First of all, the only feeling of training was at the intervals: goooo, relax, gooooo. But that was only once a week and the silver lining is that you get the sexy voice of the app caressing your ears more often (“keep your pace between…”). The rest of the training was pure enjoyment. 

A nice surprise was the long runs. I scheduled them on Sundays: good on one hand, as the streets are emptier and calmer. On the other, though, Sundays have a strong preference of following Saturdays, which are often associated in the summer with meeting with friends, chatting, barbecuing, avoiding water... Don’t know about others, but I choose my friends after my image and likeness, so (some of the) Sunday mornings were ... difficult, at least in the beginning. But it soon turned out that running was really helping after a diligent evening of filling bottles with air: first of all, it is an excellent medium to chase away the “shit, I ate and drank like a pig yesterday” guilt. There’s no way I would not go out running just because “I’m a bit tired”. On the contrary, it acted like the solution towards feeling a decent person again. Secondly, I noticed that a lot of milestones were achieved on Sundays following some “prolific Saturdays”. It even made me advance the idea that the first 15k or half marathon achievements were due to the high quality wine I’d had the day before. I was so convinced about it that I even dared explain it to my wife, using real data, knowing she’d agree with me immediately: 

“You’re right, Flo, let’s make sure that you don’t forget to murder a few bottles of wine the day before running 20km. Don’t worry, I’ll remind you that, if need be”, was the logical answer I was expecting after my eloquent pitch. 

“Hmmm… so how long do you think your luck will last?”

Real data and eloquent pitch, didn’t I tell you?

To be honest, the luck was there galore. After a month or so of training, the balance towards running was clearly tipped. I had managed to run my first half marathon during my training, even with a good time (close to a quarter under two hours) and I had increased the mileage per week. I stopped the 10k training programme and I chose another one - the half marathon. And when I did it, I did it in a way that I didn’t even think it was even remotely specific to me: pushing and pushing and pushing. I went faster and longer in almost any training sessions, not stopping until I felt my legs and lungs hitting back. I never thought I had so much ambition and perseverance in me. So, where’s the luck here? I didn’t get injured. Hope I won’t jinx it, but I managed to stay injury-free and (I think) I learned how to listen to my body. It’s, in a sense, like listening to the woman, but different. 

The race was approaching and the high point was that I registered together with my daughter. At the time of the race, she had just turned half of my age and that alone I found something worth celebrating. 

On the day of the race, I took my whole family with me for support. If someone listened to us, they could swear that the little brat was the one running the race, so excited he was. Of course, he was there to encourage us (heey, there are 200 in front of you, you’d better speed up) and to trick mom into buying whatever was available to eat. There had been better days for him, but not that many. 

My wife assessed the situation quickly and objectively: 

“Do you know the rules?”

“Not quite, I assume we start running after the gun signal. Then, preferably stop after 4 rounds in my case. Simple, no offside rule or so”

(It’s the race, let’s pretend I didn’t get the sarcasm) “Just don’t run in front, so you won’t get lost”

“There’s a guy with a bike in front of us, no way you can get lost”

“Just saying. Kisses now, off you go”

And off I went. After the gun, in my first ever organised race. The first round was to test the water. I was an inexperienced runner at that time, but I spotted the “kids” already - people more inexperienced than me, who started really fast and obviously would not be able to keep the pace. That became really clear at the beginning of the second round when they dropped their speed and I increased mine. I overtook quite a few in the second round (nice feeling, I admit!) and I was hungry for more. I spotted a group of 3-4 people and went for them, reached them, overtook them, gathering more speed, yeaaah. I looked around - no one, except for the group I had overtaken. It took me a fraction of the second to assess the situation: I cut the route by a lot and those I overtook were not even part of the race! That was the moment I started to sweat. And swear as well. I swiftly realised that I would have to go back. I’d lose some precious seconds, but no way I would go on my first race cheating. “Just don’t run in front, so you won’t get lost”. Well, in my defence, I didn’t! 

When I returned, I ran like kids, to make up for the lost time. Overtook the same people again, smiled at each other, going even faster. I passed the middle of the race already, when I had a short moment of panic: what if I am going too fast and I’d be out of breath soon? Will I be able to run 5 more km when I was already breathing heavily? Why am I so agitated while the others seem so calm? I managed to steady my pace for a second and then I did what I had done all my life ins such moments: accelerate! 

I don’t know what exact drugs are produced in such situations, but for sure I got a generous dose of them. The panic was gone, the breathing stabilised, the fatigue in the legs increased, but they are just stupid legs, they should bear their cross and toil.

I finished the race still standing and in the first 15% of the runners. I was thrilled, exhilarated even, but still somehow it felt just like a stepping stone to something else. Something that I was already looking forward to: the half.