Westminster Mile 2018

The Vitality Westminster Mile last month (27 May 2018) was apparently the biggest ever timed mile event,  with a total of 8,048  runners in 39 waves taking part compared to the previous record of 7,664 set at the New York Fifth Avenue Mile last year. It was a pretty diverse crowd, more so even than your average parkrun - maybe runnng a mile is less daunting than 5k.

The race took place on a course around London's St James's Park, starting at approximately the point where the London Marathon ends, and finishing in front of Buckingham Palace.

There were various waves including for parkrunners and Masters, I obviously messed up  booking my place online as I ended up in one of the family waves.  Still it was started by Mo Farah which was cool enough, and once I'd squeezed past the toddlers and parents I had quite a race against some fast teenagers. Coming back from injury I was way off my PB but 6:11 is still top 40 for age on power of 10 so whatevs.

Running down Birdcage Walk was a strange experience, my previous efforts along there being in the last few hundred metres of the Marathon. I wasn't quite so exhausted, but running flat out for a mile brings a different kind of pain.

A fast and flat enough course with a well organised operation, my only criticism was that the combination of mass race and major tourist destination in current security climate made it quite difficult for spectators. I really wanted to get to Birdcage Walk to cheer on some of my clubmates in the  final stretch, but I ended up in a huge bottleneck of people trying to get in/out of the area in front of Buckingham Palace.

Wandering around Green Park afterwards, who should I see but Seb Coe, president of the International Association of Athletics Associations. Maybe not somebody I would always see eye to eye with politically, but nobody can deny that he cares about the sport and obviously he is a running legend.

After commenting on my Kent AC vest ('great old club') we had a brief chat about the previous week's Night of 10,000m PBs at Highgate, which we had both attended. Always a good night out, this year featured the added excitement of clubmate Alex Yee winning the British 10,000m Champs, cheered on by a Kent AC contingent on the final bend chanting 'Yee, Yee, Yee'.

Up on Parliament Hill I had a go at running round the cross country course, famed for its cold muddy challenge during National and Southern champs. It was much easier going on a sunny afternoon, but I got very lost in the woods and ended up, as you do on Hampstead Heath, next to some random pond or other. 

Women's A Race at Night of 10,000m PBs

Stadium Crimes (1): Fenway Park in The Handmaid's Tale & the history of stadium atrocities

Some of the most memorable, joyous and life affirming moments are to be had in sports stadiums - the concentration of the crowd on the action unfolding in front of it, the noise, the physical proximity, the energy and emotions...

Watching the new second series of The Handmaid's Tale got me thinking though about the flipside of this.  As I'm sure you will know the premise of the series, and Margaret Atwood's novel that inspired it, is that in a near future USA power has been seized by a religious fundamentalist/fascist/patriarchal elite. In Gilead, as the new republic terms itself, women are excluded from public life and  subject to all kinds of horrors. [Spoiler Alert] At the start of series two a group of women are being punished for refusing orders to stone one of their friends to death. They are taken to an empty stadium where mass gallows have been set up, and we see from the signage that it is in fact Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. The baseball diamond is overgrown,  it is now a field of nightmares rather than dreams.

Of course this is fiction, but mass executions and other atrocities have taken place in sports stadiums across the world. The use of the Paris Velodrome in the rounding up of Jews in 1942; Estadio Nacional, the Chilean national football stadium where many were tortured and killed during the 1973 military coup;  the football stadium in Bratunac where Bosnian Muslims were held during the 1992 masscares; the mass killing at the Cyangugu football stadium during the 1994 Rwandan genocide...

If sports stadiums have lent them themselves to bloody repression as well as collective joy it is because of their design. The architectural form of the modern stadium has been developed to serve two purposes. Firstly to be able to concentrate as many people as possible into a limited space in sight of the playing surface, secondly to restrict access so that only those paying an entrance can get in. It is not difficult to see how these same features can be readily utilised for incarceration  - the concentration camp as the malignant twin of the sports stadium.

I see from Malcolm MacLean on Twitter that there were some papers related to this theme at the North American Society for Sports History conference this week (May 2018), will be interesting to see some of this research.

See previously at this blog: Running in the Handmaid's Tale

First Catford parkrun in Mountsfield Park

The inaugural Catford parkrun took place in Mountsfield Park this morning, with just over 200 runners taking part. Joe Hartley (Kent AC) set the men's course record of 17:43, no doubt he could go faster when he's properly over the London Marathon where he ran a 2:41 PB. Vicky Boyle set the women's course record of 21:26.  

Joe Hartley, first finisher (photo from @freyathlon)

It's an interesting course, undulating rather than hilly, with a psychological plus point that it feels like there's more down hill than up. Unlike many London parkruns much of it is on grass/trail rather than tarmac and with my ongoing achilles issues I certainly welcomed the softer surfaces. My run was slow and a bit sore, but hey I am currently the V55 course record holder with 23:45! Yes this time last year I could still occasionally manage a sub-20 5k, whether I will get back to that or nor I've accepted that it is a privilege just to be able to keep running. 

 The start and finish points are by the park's bandstand, and the three lap course also features a circuit of a field in park that has the distinction of briefly being  the home of Charlton Athletic FC in the 1920s as well as the long defunct Catford Southend FC (see more at Running Past on this).

don't worry, you don't have to run up these steps...

watch out for the cat -  the start of Mountsfield parkrun is a 15 minute
walk from the centre of Catford

This is the third parkrun in a Lewisham park, the others being at Beckenham Place and at Hilly Fields, my home parkrun. I went along there last week for its 300th event. As it was also the day before the London Marathon there were a lot of tourists in town, so Hilly Fields had its second largest ever attendance of 341. As numbers grow, the new Catford event should take some of the pressure off it. 

Hilly Fields parkrun 300 cake

the end of Hilly Fields parkrun 300

'welcome to the 300th Hilly Fields parkrun'

Running London: Wembley Stadium

I am continuing my effort to run in all 33 London boroughs (only 3 left to do) and today ticked off the London Borough of Brent with a run round one of the city's most iconic sporting venues - Wembley Stadium. OK I wasn't running around the pitch, but there's a good flat circuit around the outside of the Stadium that is perfect for laps of just under 1 km.

The current version of the Stadium only dates back to 2007 of course, replacing the 1920s Stadium that was demolished in 2003. But the location has nearly 100 years of sporting history, including athletics as the main venue for the 1948 Olympic Games. Obviously it is most associated with football, and most football fans will have their good and bad memories.

Me and Bobby Moore  - there's a Bobby 2 Bobby Wembley Strava segment

The high point for me was the April 1988 League Cup Final, when Luton beat Arsenal 3-2 - I can't believe that was thirty years ago next month. I can honestly say that was one of the happiest days of my life - the game had everything, Luton going ahead, then Arsenal scoring twice to take the lead, Luton keeper Andy Dibble saving a penaly and then another Luton goal before Brian Stein scored the winner in the last minute. It was pure joy in the crowd (amongst the Luton supporters anyway!), I remember me, my dad and my friend Paul just jumping around for ages. That feeling stayed with me for days afterwards, in fact I can still summon it up when I remember it. 

Low point was going to Wembley as a child with my dad in 1975 for the England/Scotland match. My dad bought a fold up wooden stool for me to stand on so that I could see the action from the terraces. Unfortunately as a Scotland supporter it wasn't a pretty sight - England won 5-1 (I could also  mention seeing Luton lose 4-1 to Reading in the 1988 Simod Cup Final but in my mind that has been recorded over by the victory over Arsenal a few weeks later).

Hilly Fields snow run

There seemed to be a lot of people walking around by London Bridge yesterday wearing T-shirts and the occasional crop top in the sun. I was finding it hard to believe the forecast for the next day's snow. But true enough when I woke up this morning to get ready for Hilly Fields parkrun the snow was coming down heavily in South East London.

When I got to the park it was clear that the weather didn’t seem to have discouraged anybody. I suspect that many, like me, were relishing the rare opportunity to run in the snow, especially as during the snowfall a couple of weeks ago many races and park runs were cancelled .

So about 250 runners in multiple layers made their weekly three circuits of the park, joined this time by members of local triathlon clubs (including Brixton Windrush, Greenwich Tritons, Westcroft and Crystal Palace tri clubs). staging their own 'mob match' race within the parkun.

At the top of the hill the wind was blowing the snow across more or less horizontally but other than that it wasn’t too bad. I was certainly warmer running than watching others run in the cold, as I did at the Big Half and cross country nationals recently. I have been out of action with injury with last week's Peckham parkrun my first 5K effort since early January. I still can’t go too far or fast but it was great to be out in the elements with this friendly as usual crowd. I know its customary to thank the volunteers and marshals, on this occasion they certainly earned it.

runners footsteps up the big hill in Hilly Fields

ready for snow action

Running on Screen: Big Little Lies

Running along the beach and elsewhere in the Monterey area is a feature of the HBO series 'Big Little Lies' (2017). This includes one episode where the three main female characters - played by Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley and Reese Witherspoon - are briefly seen jogging around town together (yes it has a great cast, Laura Dern  and Alexander Skarsgård also feature).

But it is Woodley's Jane character who does the most running. A lot of people use running as a kind of therapy, turning over their problems in their heads. Jane has a particularly turbulent inner life, fantasising about suicide and revenge as she runs along the sand and the cliff tops, and trying to recover memories of previous traumas. To say more would be to spoil it...

Previously in the Running on Screen series:

Running to David Bowie - Frances Ha/Mauvais Sang

Undercover, the A Word (Series 1) & How to Stay Young

Atypical and The A Word (series 2)
Jodie Whittaker from London Marathon to Dr Who (& Broadchurch)

Stick Man's Christmas Running Adventure

Run Lola Run and running Berlin

Walford Half Marathon (Eastenders)

A Running Row in Eastenders

Grey's Anatomy Coaching Advice

T2 Trainspotting
God Help the Girl

Race Strategy in The (US) Office

Top of the Lake (also featuring Elisabeth Moss running) and The Fall

The Girl on the Train
China Crisis - Wishful Thinking
The Running Man (1987)
Muybridge's Runner, 1887

The Casual Vacancy

From Darkness

London Spy

New Blood

Fleabag

'The egotism of a healthy body' & its opposite - injury thoughts

'He ran the course and as he ran he grew.
And smelt his fragrance in the field. Already,
Running he knew the most he ever knew.The egotism of a healthy body'
(Innocence by Thom Gunn)

So there's been a bit of a fuss about Strava's famous heatmap showing people's movements across the globe, including on occasions secret military bases. But for some of us Strava tells another dark story right now -  a black hole of non-activity.

Yes, it's injury time. As I mentioned before, the latter half of 2017 saw me running through a sore achilles and getting progressively slower. So my New Year resolution of seeing a physio (at Back on Track in Catford) has been achieved - with the advice that I should STOP running for at least a few weeks. I've withdrawn from the inaugural London Big Half, despite having a good for age time, and will be missing some of the highlights of the year for me - the closing races of the cross country season including the English National Cross Country Champs at Parliament Hill. 

If running is part of your identity, not running threatens your very sense of self. It's what you do, it's what a lot of your friends do too. Whatever crap is going on in your life, at work or whatever, when you're running something clicks into place - yes, 'The egotism of a healthy body'. So when the body doesn't feel so healthy, the ego takes a bit of a kicking too...

Partly this pain is a case of memento mori - everybody will slow down and eventually stop, in the long run our body, our plans, maybe even our Strava profile will turn to dust or its digital equivalent - so walk (or better, run) in the light while there is light.

But we don't have to beat ourselves up and imagine that each enforced break on our journey is the end. Injury is a sign of our mortality but it does not signify weakness or some kind of failing. Most running related injuries are 'overuse' injuries, the result of pushing our bodies to their limit. The only sure way of avoiding them is to stay on the sofa.

There are very few athletes who haven't had to deal with injuries - it's part of the territory. As Alistair Brownlee explains: 'there is a trade off between the intensity of your training and the odds of you getting injured. Put simply, the harder and more intense your training, the greater the strain you are putting on your body… I could train a bit less, and I’d get less injured, but I wouldn’t be as good. Or I could train as much as I do, take the risk of being injured and be the best I can.… here’s the thing: I’d rather be as good as I can be and maybe have a shorter career through injury, than never know, or cruise. It’s always been about how good I can be. How hard can I push it? How much training can I do, how fast does that make me? I’d prefer to have three or four cracking years of winning stuff than have 10 years of being average' (Swim, Bike, Run: Our Triathlon Story).

Of course  most of us aren't 'winning stuff',  let alone Olympic golds, but we all have our goals and standards and pushing towards them entails running along the edge between optimum training intensity and overdoing it. Unfortunately we generally only know we've crossed over from one to the other when it hurts too much to go on.

I have been greatly inspired by the recovery from injury of some much more talented runners than me in my own club, Kent AC. In the past few weeks Alex Yee, badly injured coming off his bike in triathlon a year ago, won the BUCS cross country champs; John Gilbert won the Southern Cross Country Champs having had a tough year or two; and Alison Thomson was in the top ten parkun times in the UK having been unable to manage a jog this time last year.

Russell Bentley is back running up hills and mountains after slicing his leg open on a rock in a mountain race only last October. He too had his moments of 'experiencing self-doubt. Sense of perspective goes out the window... I can now understand why all those other running bloggers don’t want to blog about it. Your self-worth is questioned, you don’t think anyone will be interested in anything you have to say'. Another Kent AC blogger, Lawerence Avery, was out of action for several months with a stress fracture. As well as obsessively cross training,  'Being injured also made me think about how I might stay part of sport once I’m either too crocked or too old to compete, or what else I could do now alongside competing. I’ve been an obsessive reader about the sport and training methods ever since I started running, so making the leap into coaching was an obvious one'.  Lawrence has taken the England Athletics Coaching Assistant qualification and started coaching others in the club, but he's not done running yet. Good to see him back in action in Surrey League last week, which I went along to watch and cheer rather than run. The course was so narrow in parts that following the action meant running part of the course,at which point I wished I had joined in - but realistically I would have been hobbling by the end of the first lap.

I don't expect to ever be in anything approaching the same form as these guys, even for my age, but it's great to see people getting back to where they were before, or even better, after injury.  I've put on hold any running goals for now, other than getting my parkrun volunteer t-shirt,  while trying to keep fit in the gym and hoping for recovery in time for the summer.

(yes I am aware that the Thom Gunn poem is actually about a youth who grows up to be a nazi soldier - the egotism of a healthy body can end up in some very dark places!)