Doing It By Halves

This coming Sunday I shall be taking part in the Roding Valley Half-Marathon. It is pretty self-explanatory. You may have guessed that it’s in Roding Valley and it covers 13 miles, which by astonishing coincidence is half the distance of a marathon. The idea of my participation in this is to familiarise myself with race conditions and grow accustomed to the idea of running alongside other people. This, I feel, will stand me in good stead for the marathon to come.

It will not be the first race that I have taken part in. On Sunday 3^rd October 2010, I ran the Southend 10km (that’s about 6.2 miles, or a quarter of the London Marathon) race on the advice of my uncle Mark. I remember that day quite well. It was a cold October morn. I had been out ‘clubbing’ the night before with some people that I had met on holiday back in July and August. I was careful to leave the party quite early and limit my alcohol intake that evening, though, the sensible course of action would have been not to drink at all. I would have liked to have got more sleep that night but I had to be up early in the morning to get to Southend.

We got there nice and early. In fact, probably too early, but common sense suggests that it is better to be early than late if you’re supposed to be participating in a race.  I remember the excitement building up as more and more people came along and we made our way to the start. I was standing somewhere near the back, so when the starting pistol was fired (or maybe it was a whistle – whatever it was, I didn’t hear it! I just followed everybody in front of me) I was sandwiched between so many people. Flanked by people to the right of me. Flanked by people to the left of me. Masses of people in front of me. Masses of people behind me. It was hard to build up my speed straightaway because I was surrounded by all these people on all sides. After about half a mile, everybody spread out a bit and people started running at their own pace, and I was able to build up some speed and run at a comfortable rate. The view was quite lovely, overlooking the seafront. I wish I had had more opportunity to appreciate the view but I was wholly focused on the race and watching where I was going. Perhaps when I run the London marathon, I will at least be able to take in some of the sights as I run.

Unfortunately I got a stitch in my side so I had to slow down and walk a couple of times, but I was able to resume running after about a minute, and despite having to slow down twice, I finished the race with a very respectable time of 51 minutes and 5 seconds. That put me in 580^th place out of 1460 finishers, so I was very pleased with that performance, being my first proper race. Who would have thought it? Martin Pampel, bib number 1716, running ten kilometres in 51 minutes?

So my thoughts turn now to the upcoming half marathon in Roding Valley. It won’t be the same race. Aside from the fact that Roding Valley is more local to me than Southend, at 13 miles, it is twice the distance of the 10km race (again, roughly 6.2 miles) and while the Southend 10km was completely flat, the Roding Valley half-marathon will be on some hilly terrain, so I expect it to be a much tougher race. At the very least, running up those hills should certainly help me build up my stamina, my strength, and whatnot. It will hopefully prove to be an excellent warm-up for the London Marathon. In fact, the route of the London Marathon is largely flat. It’s just much longer overall.

So, to summarise: The Roding Valley Half-Marathon is this Sunday, 27th February at 9am. The course starts and finishes at the Ashton Playing Fields, comprising a small lap of one mile and then two larger 6-mile laps, running down Chigwell Road, up Chigwell Rise, up Buckhurst Hill (this, I fear, will be the hardest part), and back into Woodford Green again. So if you live locally, see if you can spot me. I’ll be the one bringing up the rear, struggling up that enormous hill. Spare a thought for me, undergoing this torture in the name of charity.