The Finishing Line

It seems hard to believe that nearly two weeks have elapsed and I’ve only just regained my breath, and indeed my wits, to put digit to keyboard.

After several months of complaining that it’s all too difficult and my feet hurt the moment of truth had finally arrived. The day of the Great Eastern Fun Run. In front of me was 4 kilometres (2.5 miles in old money) of chafing and sweat.

So there I was a week last Sunday, up at an unfortunate time of the morning for the so-called day of rest, although the Japanese Grand Prix was on so I had some entertainment to take my mind off things, pondering what I was going to eat. In the day or so leading up to the race this had become a pressing issue for me. Should I eat porridge or poached eggs on wholegrain toast? How, for that matter, do I poach an egg? I normally fry or boil them. In the end, the present Mrs Hayward suggested I just eat what I normally would so I decided upon a couple of slices of toast (plus some peanut butter I found in the cupboard) and a banana. To be fair I didn’t need the banana. 

Fuelled on this cocktail of peanuts and phallic shaped fruit I left the house with Mrs Hayward and my father-in-law in tow for support. Mother-in-law was indisposed with a stinking cold so she was let off. 

I have to say that taking my father-in-law was a risk. The man is just about to turn 65 but is probably fitter than I am by quite some margin. He’s always on the go and when Mrs Hayward did the Race for Life a few years ago he found her on the course and then ran ahead of her at some speed so he could see her cross the finish line. She was most embarrassed that her father who is some 30 years her senior was showing her up with his surprising fleet of foot.

I have to say that, somewhat surprisingly, it didn’t feel weird being stood in Cathedral Square surrounded by people in shorts and fancy dress, after all I go to the Peterborough Beer Festival every year and there’s some rather bold fashion statements made there, although there are many pints of fine real ale on hand to numb the senses. 

It wasn’t even that weird when former Olympic athlete Sally Gunnell wandered past me. When it properly got weird was the moment I found myself about two rows from the front at the start line. Well, I got bored with the whole warm up thing the DJs from BBC Radio Cambridgeshire (bless their cotton socks) were trying to get us to do in Cathedral Square and they were generating far too much whooping and excitement when I was more concerned that the banana I’d recently ate was going to make a dramatic reappearance during the race.

Funnily enough my friend who was attending in her St John Ambulance role later told me that the majority of cases heading her way were not sprained ankles or broken legs but people incessantly vomiting. Oh and there were a couple of runners who should have stopped and done a ‘Paula Radcliffe’ by the side of the road but instead kept going, which is just dirty.

I stood on the road, watching the time tick down and it was all a bit of a blur from there. There were kids jostling around me, a blue dragon thing was on the podium to my right, followed by a woman dressed as a fairy (something to do with a local charity) and then, bang! The start gun went and we were off. 

I had decided before I got there that I was not going to be out of the traps like a Greyhound or else it would be all over for me before I even got to 100 metres. This was the case for a lot of the excitable kids around me who didn’t get very far at all, including the ginger chubby one that had barged past me. Maybe that was just my reflection; it was hard to tell in the mêlée.

My main objective from thereon was just to keep going. I found it useful to identify a fellow athlete in front of me who was going a pace I liked and stick with them, until they either stopped or sped off into the distance. In the end I followed a guy in an NSPCC top who was doing a reasonable pace and was with him until near the end.

My concern had been that I would be overtaken by someone dressed in some sort of animal costume and these concerns were well founded. At the 2 kilometre mark I was overtaken by two guys dressed as parrots. To be fair to them they must have been fit as they were not showing any signs of being hampered by wearing a heavy felt costume. They were part of a group who were running as part of a pirate theme. I met the Head Pirate himself just before the end and he told me he regretted that he’d worn a hat to run in. I was impressed that a) he was running at all and b) that either of us could speak at this point.

Fuelled by a heady mix of adrenaline and peanut butter I kept going and going and going until suddenly I could hear the sound of the tannoy at the finish line. This was the first time my legs started to tell me that they thought we’d had enough, but my brain fired off a terse memo that read ‘Keep going you fools’.

Before I knew it the end was in sight as well as sound and even though by that point I’d just run 3.80 kilometres the last few metres seemed the longest. It didn’t help that the run up to the finishing line takes you off the firm concrete path and on to the undulating terrain of the Embankment but I managed to avoid any embarrassing trips or falls, and as I crossed the line I heard the tannoy announcing the safe return of “…number 57, Terry Hayward…” and I knew it was all over.

I quickly got ushered through a marquee, stripped of the timing chip attached by Velcro to my ankle and handed a cloth bag (which I initially thought was an apron, but having never done anything like this before I didn’t express surprise), some water which was well received, a medal, and a banana. My stomach sent a memo this time to say that quite frankly it had seen enough of bananas for one day so I put it out of sight in the bag.

I was met outside the finishing zone by Mrs Hayward and my father-in-law who hadn’t got down to the finish in time to see me triumphantly cross the finish line and so we consulted our watches. It wasn’t even half ten so I knew that I must have got round relatively quickly for me. 

As it turned out I ran it in 24 minutes and 40 seconds. This will serve me in good stead the next time I go out for a drink with my good friend Ned and he suggests we go to another pub some 2.5 miles away with half an hour to go before closing because it has a rare ale on that we have to try. Trust me, this is not an unlikely scenario.

And so, before I knew it, it was all over and I was off, medal around my neck, heading back to the car. My moment of glory was over. 

When I returned home I had a bath. This is not normal for me. I don’t really like having a bath; I’m more of a shower man. I feel uncomfortable in a bath and usually just sit bolt upright looking quite uncomfortable. However it felt like the right thing to do and so I found myself slipping into the bubbles (come on, I had to have bubbles, do they still sell Mr Matey?) and relaxed.

So, that is one of my New Years Resolutions done. Ticked off. Completed. Oh, and thanks to some very generous people (you know who you are) I raised £423.00 for The Stroke Association. Me and my tired legs say thank you.

It has inspired me to do something else next year. I keep being asked if I’m going to do a half marathon, or a full marathon, or even the Olympics, but I’m wondering whether it’s time to hang up my trainers and just run for fun.

After all, there’s so much else I could do. I’ve never abseiled, or bungee jumped, or walked over hot coals, or climbed a mountain, or jumped out of a plane, or chased some cheese down a hill…..

The mid-life crisis continues.