 |
| Important to get a feel of your baton before you start ! |
I FIND it helps to focus the mind, not to mention the
legs and lungs, if you divide the running year into seasons.
Therefore I have declared the next couple of
months as the 2013 Relay Season. Hoist up thy batons and run!
Like many a runner, we at the small-but-perfectly-formed
Tiptree Road Runners like to spend the summery weather outside of our comfort
zones. This year that means pitting our wits against the bigger boys and girls
in team relay events.
We have four relays over the next 12 weeks and
we’ll be in there with the best of them, exchanging slippery batons, soiled wristbands,
or simply touching hands, whatever the race officials require.
Relay-running is as old as the hills, and probably
started when messengers passed on news during wartime in ancient lands. Nowadays
we have no messages to pass on, we just do it for the hell of it.
First of the quartet is this Sunday’s Ekiden event
in the well-kept 60 acres of an Ipswich college. The Japanese invented Ekiden
running, the first one a grueling three-day affair in 1917. This week in
Ipswich things will be a little easier, with teams of six tackling a mere 26.2
miles around the college fields.
It promises to be a notable occasion as our big
red club gazebo will be making its public debut! With our upright banners flapping alongside,
it should make an impressive sight. Upgrading
to this level of equipment shows we mean business.
Flying your flags like this makes
it easier to gather your flock together before an event in order to talk
tactics, distribute numbers and supply safety pins to the forgetful. And if it gets hot or wet, you can dive under
a gazebo for shelter. The luxuries we modern runners enjoy know no bounds.
More physically demanding than Ekiden will be the Thunder
Run relay in Derbyshire later this month. This jamboree lasts 24 hours, including
eight hours navigating paths, woods and fields in a rugged country park after
nightfall. Imagine ‘The Blair Witch Project’ in running kit and you’ve got the
idea. In Catton Park nobody hears you scream.
Here our 16 runners can each expect to run three
separate 10km laps during the 24 hours . Not too demanding for a marathoner,
but in my case that’s a week’s mileage in one day. I may hide a bike in the
woods for use during my third lap. Three hard 10ks in 24 hours? I didn’t even
do that sort of thing when I was young, fit and foolish.
After the Thunder Run is done, we’ll need a change
from running round in circles. So what could be better than point-to-point
action in God’s Own County? The first
day of September heralds the ten-stage Essex Way Relay, a rural journey of 83
miles from Epping to Harwich.
You benefit from prevailing winds behind you on
this jaunt, and there’s always the thought of the chip shop near the finish
line if you need extra motivation. Of course you can get fish and chips in
Harwich any old time, you don’t have to run there for the privilege. But they
slip down better if you’ve earned them.
A fraction shorter than the epic Essex Way is a
brand new event this year, the Saltmarsh 75, which from all accounts might prove
a lot harder than its inland opposite number. It winds along the 75 miles of mostly
wild and lonely coastline under the control of Maldon District Council. If you
thought the start at Burnham-on-Crouch was a thinly-populated backwater, wait
till you see the finish at Salcott-cum-Virley! Media types who think Essex is
nothing but fake tans, stilletos and nail-bars should come and see this one.
The late Jim Peters, arguably Essex’s greatest-ever
runner, would be baffled by the way the county is represented in the TOWIE show,
but would definitely approve of our 2013 relay-running scene. He loved a good
relay did Jim, and, were he in action today would have been a solo entrant for
the Saltmarsh 75 and perhaps the Essex Way too.
Jim was in the news only last week and I was
pleased to play a part. The old running track in Mayesbrook Park, Dagenham - where
Jim trained and competed in the 1950s - was
officially re-named ‘The Jim Peters Stadium’ complete with a new Olympic
standard track in the shadow of the impressive Sport House complex. Borough Archivist
Tahlia Coombs had pushed for Jim to be recognised in this way and as author of his
2011 biography ‘Plimsolls On, Eyeballs
Out’, I was invited along to take part in the ceremony.
Good job a spin round the new track wasn’t on the
agenda, as your Clapped-Out Runner
currently has an achilles tendon of the strained variety. It’s an injury that has ruled me out of the
Ekiden, but wasn’t too severe to prevent me limping to the microphone in Mayesbrook
Park to tell the youth of today (700 of them) a bit about old Jim Peters and
his exploits of 60 years ago.
* Rob
Hadgraft’s five published books on running (plus 11 others on football) are now
available as e-books for Kindle at just £4.99 each, in addition to paperback
format. Use this link: Rob Hadgraft's running books on
Amazon or, alternatively: www.robhadgraft.com
