The Eastleigh 10k 2012 was Commando’s first proper race. For me it was a nerve wracking time sitting in the sun on the sports field waiting for him to come back. As I watched people cross the line looking exhausted and on the verge of collapse I began to fear the worst. It was such a relief to see him come back safe and sound. The 2013 race was a whole different kettle of fish in more ways than one. This time I knew he could do it, I had an idea how long he would take and it would be the first time he had a chance to set a PB…
March 24 2013
It was another early start today, this time for Commando’s Eastleigh 10k. If anything it was colder than yesterday and we found ourselves shivering at Fleming Park with about an hour to go before the race started. Last year is was a beautiful sunny day and we’d hung around on the playing field enjoying the morning sun. Today we made straight for the leisure centre building. Us and two thousand six hundred other runners! Commando went off to get his race t-shirt and his chip and I started stripping off my outdoor clothes so I’d feel the benefit later.
We hung around in the main hall for a while where people were getting pre race massages and gathering their running gear together. The sight of a rather elderly, rather portly gentleman stripping down to just his shorts, applying nipple tape (he did have some rather spectacular breasts) and then using Vaseline to grease parts of himself I don’t even want to think about drove us out of the hall. We hung around in the corridor for a while, nabbing a place right next to a radiator, but it was getting so crowded by this time we decided to brave the cold and make our way to the start line.
Of course we felt even colder once we got outside and I swear I saw a few flakes of snow. The start line was divided up into sections according to expected finish time which I thought was a pretty good idea. The elite athletes who were expecting to finish in under thirty minutes at the front, then going back in five minute increments. Commando and I walked back to the under fifty minute area and, after I’d taken his water bottle and running jacket, he disappeared into the throng of runners.
For a while I did hang around and even managed to snap a photo of him amongst all the runners but it seemed a waste of time waiting for the start. After last year, when I took hundreds of photos of people running without once spotting Commando or catching him on camera, I realised the futility of trying to see him cross the start line. Besides I was freezing just standing there so I set off to walk the mile or so to the Swan Centre to pick up a coffee. Stupidly, I hadn’t plotted a route on WalkJogRun and, as my hands were so cold, I was having trouble working out a good route as I walked. Now, having checked it all out properly, I can see it would have been easy to get there and back a great deal quicker. Oh well, lessons learned for next time.
Even walking quite fast I was absolutely perished by the time I got to the Swan Centre. The wind was biting and my fingers hurt. I started off going to the loo and spent a good few minutes running my hands under the hot tap to thaw them out. Then I picked up a large takeaway skinny latte from Costa’s and started the walk back. Of course I thought I’d be clever and take a short cut and of course it didn’t work out so I ended up taking even longer on the way back. At least the slightly panicked rushing kept me warm.
When I got back to Fleming Park the first few elite runners had already crossed the line and I set off over the muddy playing field towards the finish line. More mud, as if I needed it! Last year, because I didn’t actually leave Felming Park, I’d been able to bag myself a prime spot and sit on the grass reading my kindle while I waited. There would be no sitting on the grass today for sure, I’d never have got back out of the mud. This time, even from the other side of the field, I could see there were already crowds and there was no way I was going to get a good view. I was so intent on getting across the field quickly, just in case Commando had some how smashed his time so much he was close to finishing, I almost walked right through a Sunday League football game. Luckily I saved myself just in time and went round the pitch.
So I waited, as near as I could get to the finish, holding the bright running jacket in one hand and a bottle of post race milkshake in the other, hopping up and down to keep warm and try and see over all the tall people in front of me. They probably weren’t all that tall to be honest, just taller than me, which isn’t difficult, but they were in the way and I could only snatch glimpses of the runners coming in. Normally I can easily spot Commando because of his hair. Today he was wearing a black running hat so I tried to look for that. Everyone was wearing black running hats, it seemed. There were many false sightings. When the fifty minute people had come and gone and I still hadn’t seen Commando, I began to pace up and down, thinking I’d missed him coming over the line and he must be amongst all the people milling around.
Up and down the finish line I paced, getting more and more frantic when I couldn’t see him. Everywhere I looked there were black running hats but they all belonged to people who weren’t Commando. I started to worry that something had happened to him. Maybe he’d had a fall and was hurt or a car could have hit him. All sorts of things were going through my head, as they do in such situations. Right at the point where I was beginning to think I should go and speak to an official to find out if anyone had been run over during the race, my phone rang. It was Commando, using the spare mobile he’d left in his big sports bag in the main hall. He sounded quite cross, wondering where I was. Obviously we’d both been pacing up an down the finish line and missed each other.
So I marched back across the muddy field to the Leisure Centre and pushed my way through the crowds into the main hall. There he was, already wearing his sweat shirt and packed up to leave. I was so relieved to see him safe I burst into tears. What an idiot! Lessons to be learned, never leave the field, no matter how cold, and find a good spot at the front on the finish line. I’m too short to stand at the back and have any hope of seeing anything other than people’s backs.
He did smash his personal best by the way, not so much that he arrived back before I did but well under the fifty minutes. Last year he finished in 50.36 and 997th out of 2400, pretty good as he was in the top half of the course. This year he did it in 47.55, knocking two minutes forty one seconds off his time which is pretty spectacular. This year he came 857th out of 2600, so he was actually in the first third! How about that!