The last time A. and I were in this clubhouse, we very nearly got ourselves banned for life for setting off a fire extinguisher. In mitigation, the last time would have been 1975 or thereabouts. It wouldn't have been either of us that actually did the deed, but friends at the Athletic club to which we both belonged from age 11.
The prominently displayed sign suggests this is no genteel Home Counties event, for on this cool Sunday morning in early autumn A. and I are to run the Middlesex 10K Championships in Victoria Park. There is a very big E in the post code, and as the sign suggests, you'd do well not to run alone in the evenings around here.
It is a landmark event in many ways; we both lived in Hackney for a number of years, and ran around the park and adjacent canal daily. This was when there were things floating in the canal you'd do well not to inspect too closely. Some 20 years ago A. ran his best half-marathon here; he mentioned that race to the club official organising today's event, who immediately recalled the scorching conditions all those years ago. Being here is a throwback to an even earlier time for us however, the annual Victoria Park Relays which we both took part in between ages 11 and 16; it's also the first time we will have competed in the same event for decades.
I've known A. for 35 years, was best man at his wedding, although there has been a huge gap in the relationship (entirely my fault). Yet in all those years, I have only beaten him twice while running. That is a precise definition. I didn't mean whilst racing, I meant every time we've ever run together in the same temporal space, no matter how lowly the training run or weekend cross-country he has beaten me, with two exceptions. No, I'm going to list them, and this isn't some deeply-harbored grudge at his greater natural ability - it has more often come down to the desire to win on his part and the complete lack of competitive nature on mine.
Except.
Except that the reason I joined the Athletic Club aged eleven was my sister had begun to beat me in our regular sprints around the back garden. Curious as to how her sudden improvement had come about, I found she was now training twice a week at the local track. Two could and did play that game.
So here we are, at what can only be termed a retro-running event. Across the capital thousands of people are taking part in a Breast Cancer charity run in one of the royal parks, dressed in pink T-shirts and cheered on by loved ones and well wishers. Here in East London it's altogether more serious. The predominantly male participants are dressed in their club kit, strips that haven't changed in 50 years, livid red & yellow stripe combinations that recall Second Division football clothing from the early seventies. I'm getting changed when the guy next to me, in his twenties, is joined by a friend looking ashen; "This is a serious race", he says with concern. "I know", his friend replies, saying to me "We only came for an easy run round the park". The smell is of Ralgex spray and liniment oil. There is a long queue for the toilets. People stretch against walls, chairs, some lie on the grass in zen-like contemplation of what is to come.
A. speaks to his mother on the phone and she asks whether, once we get to the starting line, we will actually speak to one another. There was a time when that would have been a quite logical question to ask, and even now she is only half joking.
In the event, we are separated as soon as we start, as I have been running with some consistency over the last year or so while A. has been getting back into full fitness only over the past few months. I set off at my desired pace, and pass the halfway mark in the same time as I ran a 5K race the previous weekend. I watch my split times up until 8K and know that even coasting the final mile or so will bring me a significant personal best, so relax a little and enjoy the last part of the race, enjoy also being back here in one of my favorite London parks. The crowd, such that it exists, comprises the race marshals, some eager girls manning the water table and the occasional dog walker.
I finish in 41:56, a good couple of minutes faster than I've run previously as a veteran - my WAVA is around 72% (your percentage when compared to the world record for your age group, a system designed to allow people of all ages to compete fairly against one another). I walk back up from the funnel to the final approach and see A. running smoothly in, finishing in 44:45. He is both happy to have completed the distance comfortably yet irritated he didn't kick harder towards the end, as he had lost track of just how far there was to go at 9K.
We get changed and walk down to find the rail replacement bus from the deserted heart of the nearby industrial estate. This lies on the edge of the new Olympic Park at Stratford - though I suspect the area in which we're waiting won't be part of the athletes warm-up route, nor indeed will the marathon pass this local landmark.
Grabbing a coffee before heading in opposite directions we reminisce about growing up as runners; it was an alternative social life for us, separate from school and one that brought together kids who would have not mixed for any other reason. It seems anachronistic to write this, but these were my first catholic friends, my first black friends, my first contact with anyone at a single-sex school and when we travelled for competitions, my first contact with anyone from other parts of the country. It defined us physically also, and still does - we both have resting heart rates of 50bpm, and as great a lung capacity as is possible for our age - and for all we have trained and worked in our respective professions over the years, it may well be that the thing we instinctively know most about is how to run.
Further running things you must read:
Miles to go before I sleep by Joad Raymond
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
Coda: Just received text from race organizers, 101st, 12th in my age group.
