a lark in the park in the dark
Persevere: continue in the course of
action even in the face of difficulty or with little or no indication
of success.
Leith's motto and an appropriate one.
Persevere. What else can you do? I was thinking about this earlier
today when my bike fell over. It was outside while I was in the paint
shop. It fell over on the side with the panier bag holding some jam
jars of paint. I didn't check at that point but continued on my way
up the road. Just before I arrived on site I bumped down a small kerb
and either landed on a bit of glass or gave my rear tyre a pinch
flat. I wheeled my bike to the job and got out my lock, covered in
paint (right into the heart of the lock mechanism) and spent some
time cleaning it before locking the bike with flat tyre and then
going into work. About a half pint of paint had decorated everything
in the bottom part of the panier. Luckily the electronics (phone, mp3
player etc.) were in the other side. And it was only one of the 3 jam
jars broken so it could have been worse. (Broken glass half full.)
I didn't have a puncture repair kit, pump
and levers as they were all stolen a bit back. So after work I rolled
my bike home on the rear rim lifting it over kerbs. Persevere.
On the upside Gareth offered me a lift
to Dalkeith for the race. I jogged a couple of miles to his flat
trying not to get too sweaty as I correctly predicted quite a bit of
standing around in the cold and dark after picking up numbers and
before warming up. The jog took me through Lochend Park, which in the
arse-end of a winter's day is about as desolate a place as you will
ever find. The Stygian gloom and drizzle putting off even the most
ardent of paedophiles. Ellie says there is an urban myth that the YLT
(Young Leith Transvestites?) roam the park wearing balaclavas where
they have a weapons cache. And that the eerie ambience comes from the
submerged objects and people lying at the bottom of the black waters.
“According to sources there is even an ice-cream van down there. If
you stop and listen you can hear its child herding tune...”
There have been a few Tri-Trail races
and largely they seem well received. They are the product of the folk
from the Tri Centre, and the race venues are almost all places I rate
highly. After last year's race in Dalkeith Country Park (in the dark)
and the positive reviews, I thought it would be a great opportunity
to try something different for the PRC club championship. I get a
childlike pleasure from going out running in the dark away from
street lights and in challenging conditions. The
weather was pretty much ideal although underfoot was always going to
be very muddy after such a sodden winter. Its a brave thing to do –
encourage members of the public to go out into the dark and run round
the maze of off-road paths at points nearly knee-deep in mud. It would
be the easiest thing in the world to go off route and spend the rest
of the night wandering!
As well as giving us numbers we were
given a wrist dibber. However the only place we had to dib was the
finish line. I'm not sure there was sufficient numbers to justify
this (159) – there seemed plenty of marshals at the finish who could have
taken timings and probably been more accurate – I was wearing a
garmin and a normal watch and both showed the electronic print out
was 10secs fast. Tri-people just love kit. I was quite surprised I
didn't see anyone wearing clear cycling shades.
We started just after 7.30pm. It was
quite a narrow path up a gradient to begin, so we started quite
briskly to avoid getting stalled in the squash. I was carrying my
camera. I tried to take pics but the camera struggled to focus in the
dark especially with all the movement. It was good to have Bob M out
on the course somewhere taking photos. I think he goes to more races
than I do. The first couple of miles passed without incident. There
were hard pack trails, dirt trails and mud trails. There were
undulations and the dark added to the fun. The trails continually
twisted through the trees and it was impossible to keep a track of
where you were in relation to the Big House which was about the only
landmark. Apart from the Dalkeith Bypass which we would pass under,
do a loop and then return by.
By the second mile Johnny led the field
and Gareth was keeping him in sight. I had been in fifth but thought
it would be cool to have a Porty 1,2,3 so on a gradual downhill
cranked it up and passed a couple of the guys. I reckon I have done
more headtorch practice at maximum effort than most: every Thursday I
meet the Carnethies for Wintervals on Arthur's Seat and we
sprint up hills in the dark, away from the street lights. So I should
have been feeling very comfortable. I did have a small problem: my
lamp seemed to be not as bright as usual. I have had the excellent
headtorch (bought from Mark F) for ages now and use it a lot at work
to examine paint on walls in poorly lit rooms. The rechargable
batteries are losing their capacity to hold a charge for so long, so
I put in some Tescos “extra long life” batteries. There could be
a reason they are not as expensive as Duracell and I wasn't sure if
it was the dingy-ness of the surroundings or the guy directly behind
having more impressive equipment that was making the trail difficult
to see. I turned the power up to full but it still seemed less
powerful than normal and I was cursing not using the rechargable
batteries.
This, as a problem, quickly became
insignificant. Because we came to a junction where there was no
arrow. Every 100 meters and every junction there had been small
arrows on posts and marshals and now there was nothing. We turned left and I followed
Gareth and Johnny and gained on them as we ran parallel to the
boundary wall. It occurred to me it would have been useful to study
the map of the route before running, however everyone who did it last
year said that although you were continually unaware of where you
were, it was all very well marked and you couldn't go wrong. Only we
just had. The reason I was catching J and G was they were scratching
their heads and wondering how to retrieve the situation. This was all
a bit deja-vu. We had a bit of a summit and decided to run round till
we found an arrow. The turn (we thought) must have been to the right,
only we went left. There were no arrows.
Morale was low. I was really hacked off
that this had happened yet again, and Johnny who had started with a
spring in his step, was gutted and may have felt since he was at the
front that it was his fault. We ran round in a loop. We came upon the
mid-pack runners and started to overtake them. This would be going
down the long straight in a North East direction. Now we knew we had
made a mistake so you can be sure we would be looking for clues.
However we took the same turn left and made exactly the same mistake
again returning to the unmarked junction. On reflection I remember a broad left turn that you could cut
the corner of, on a worn path and I recall the arrow in the right
side of the path pointing us in this (wrong) direction. If it was
that junction. I will never know for sure. It all looked the same. I
could see Gareth and Johnny up ahead and felt I really had to stay in
touch with them otherwise I could be going round this loop all night.
When we got to the unmarked junction there was still no sign of an
arrow but as there was only one other direction to take (right) it
had to be that way. About this point the number 4 who kept with us
asked did we know if it was the right way. I shouted back that we
appeared to still be lost.
I also wondered what everyone else was
up to. Here we were running around in the dark and nobody with a
clue. What did the midpackers think or do when they saw most folk
going left at that junction and some faster runners overtake and turn
right? Up ahead I could still see Gareth. I suspect Johnny was
disheartened by the experience of 2 races in a row in the lead and
finding himself off piste and very pissed off. His headtorch lit
Gareth meaning Gareth had taken the lead. I suspect that if we hadn't
got lost Johnny would have given Gareth a closer run for his money.
Gareth said later he found it really hard to keep up with Jlaw early
on. He was on fire. Anyway, in case we all had to hitch a lift a home
from Ormiston I thought it better to try to keep the boys in sight.
And then an arrow and another. I had
stopped taking photos and battened down the hatches for a night of
misery: it was potentially quite a gloomy, damp and muddy environment
when one's spirit floundered. I had no idea if we were back on track
or if we were out doing some loop in the wrong order and had gone
back to the start or what. Or maybe I was dead (internally a jar
had broken) and I hadn't noticed, just kept persevering and
that this now was purgatory, and that the night, the race, would never end.
We would just do loop after loop and every 10k Bob would take a photo
until he was photographing just skeletons rattling round the haunted
House.
However, I thought, just stick in
there. Just in case this all works out just keep going and hey maybe
nobody took the right route and we are still in 1,2,3. Whatever
happens don't lose sight of G and J. Long after I had grown weary of
the splish splosh of my footfalls I saw a marshal. I asked which way
we went and was there far to go. You are more than half way says the
marshal and I was thinking “I fucking hope so.” We had been
running for 33 minutes.
I think this might have been near the
Dalkeith Bypass. We ran a loop round here then on the way back had
the sight of runners coming towards us, them coming up the road as we
ran down it. I took some very poor photos, the camera waiting till
the pretty torch-lit procession was past before firing off the flash.
It looked quite nice though and I could see why people would huddle
together in groups for light and human comfort. Gareth, who was now
leading, had to warn them of his approach as they were chatting and
running 5 abreast on the trail. They were over to the side by the
time I was going past but their bright headtorches and my dim one was
making for poor visibility and I was anxious not to miss an arrow.
Then we were back into the grounds next
to the Big House and I recognised some of the paths we had been on –
or ones very similar. I think that was the problem, it all looked
very much like itself. Then the outline of the House and a couple of
bright but small explosions of light. That would be Bob taking photos
of G and J. Sure enough a bit later and I shouted hello as Bob
snapped away. My spirits were rising: I knew that in a short while we
would take a left and drop down the path to the finish. It had been a
while since the bobbing light of the fourth runner had cast my shadow
forward but I lifted the pace going down the last descent to ensure
the 1,2,3. The runner behind turned out to be Michael McMoorfoot – a
dude with whom I have run large portions of the 2 Breweries and quite a few other races. I hadn't
recognised him at all earlier, what with the dark.
It was almost an anticlimax – dibbing
the dibber then going into the courtyard to find G and J in
discussion with the organisers studying maps and trying to make
sense of all that dark and mud and 10k of trails, that measured on my
Garmin 7.56 miles (should be 6.21 although folk said last year it was
a bit over.) Just under 48 mins! (Average pace of around 6.20) Mostly
quite good fun. I was going to rib Johnny about going the wrong way
or being a jinx but I didn't as I think he was already unhappy about it. It was only the following evening at Wintervals that
someone (thanks CM!) suggested in fact it may be myself that was the jinx since this was the third time this year I had attended races
where we had not followed the proper route. I had forgotten Conundrum. Jlaw wasn't
there. Looks like I'm the hoodoo! I'll try not do whatever it
is I'm doing. Persevering probably.
On reflection I can't imagine running
past an easily visible sign when you know you've already gone wrong.
We took the left off the long straight twice; would we really have
done that if there wasn't an arrow there? Maybe? I can't be sure. The
rest of the course gave no problems. And it would appear that nobody
took the correct course. It definitely took the shine off the evening
although most of the runners were cheerfully accepting of it. I heard
there was one person upset with Nicola for leading him astray which
I'm sure (hope) was just heat-of-the-moment albeit wildly irrational.
The organisers radioed about to confirm markers were where they were
supposed to be, but the race had definitely gone astray and no amount
of telling us the markers were all there, would sort that. Johnny
reckoned it was the extra distance we had lost in Devilla that had
turned up here, and spookily it was an almost exact match.
On the up side the tea and cake was good
and very welcome. On the down side the prize giving was pretty poor.
What do you mean am I going to look a gift horse in the mouth? Well
yes I am. If they had given out Silva headtorches as prizes I would
have been very cheerfully vocal about it. However Silva were there to
sell headtorches not give them away. The prize list was quite short –
just first three males and first three females. I was third male and
got a kids balaclava type head thing that is also a buff and an
unlikely hat. It fits my head but it's not really the sort of thing
I'd run in. Or wear. In fact a cynic might say it looked a lot like
something the Tri Centre had failed to sell in its shop so given away
as a prize. The entry was £15 for a 10k. Now I know we got extra
distance for our money but come on guys, no age group prizes and no
team prize is a bit steep for £15. I'm sure you have better stock
clearance in your lovely shop than some kids hats.
ps tonight at Wintervals I ran so hard I heard the ice cream van.
