Tom Roper's Running Training

Nostalgia

 νοσταλγία, from νόστος, nóstos, return home, and ἄλγος algos, pain, suffering.

I ran in Cambridge this morning for the first time for some years, visiting for a dinner to commemorate the 400th anniversary of my old school. Looking back at some of my runs there in previous years, I was a lot faster. The route I ran was familiar, taking in parts of the city where I was taken by au-pairs and the morning and afternoon helps, places I explored in my childhood, and those where I committed various adolescent excesses. I'll spare the reader an exact account of the romantic disappointments, drug or alcohol fuelled crises and intellectual epiphanies associated with the places I passed.  

I stayed at Wellington College, at the junction of the Backs and Madingley Road, so it was logical to set off along the back, then to cross Coe Fen and the river by the footbridge, to Trumpington Road and the Botanic Gardens, along Bateman and Panton Streets, to join Lensfield Road, past my childhood home, across Parker’s Piece and Jesus Green, and, for a final flourish, and in solidarity with the Twitten runners in Lewes, an ascent of Castle Hill and Castle Mound. 

As I ran along the riverside near Magdalene beach I overtook a woman who, in an East European accent (a fifth-columnist, my father would have said), offered me a grape. I declined, whereupon she asked which college I was from. I’m not sure whether she wanted to offer grapes to be served at high table, but I declined, I hope politely, and carried on. 

Back at the college, I ate a restorative and rather good breakfast under the forbidding eyes of the portraits of two formidable Presbyterian ladies, Mrs Agnes Gibson and Mrs Margaret Lewis.  

 

Masters cross-country...or not

Today I took part, as one of two representatives of the Seaford Striders, in yet another cross-country event, the Sussex Masters. The first race was for men over 50 and over 60; falling into the latter class, I thought I must find a spavined 69 year-old to best. Hubris, hubris.

We assembled in a muddy field above Lancing, and set off at the sound of the pistol. The first uphill was taxing, but I was by no means last, and could hear other runners behind me wheezing and grunting. As we reached a flat section, they recovered themselves and overtook me. Perhaps this would not be so easy. It wasn’t; that was the last time I saw them. The course consisted of one shortish loop of a mile, followed by two longer ones of around two miles each. Once I’d completed my first circuit, I found that the longer one consisted of a very long ascent, then a turn into a ploughed field, and a muddy and bramble-filled descent through some woods. As I completed my first lap of the longer loop, the ladies were assembling for their start and, as I ascended the hill again, the faster ladies flew past. My chivalrous instincts caused me to throw myself into the brambles as one lady tried to pass me on a narrow stretch in the woods, and, while I didn’t notice anything at the time, I finished with blood running down my arm.

As I crossed the finish line I heard the timekeeper call out ’01’. I think this means I was just outside an hour. Though my Garmin recorded a time of 59:43, I think I fumbled at the start, so I fear I probably was outside an hour. 

I went home to wash off the blood and mud. I am sorry to say I shall miss the next East Sussex Cross Country League event, at Firle Beacon on 31 January, but I shall have cleaned my trail shoes in time for the final race of the season, at Pett, east of Hastings.