Met League #1 Claybury
As a rule, cross-country races always start with a bang: the starter pistol is fired and the field erupts. But I think it’s fair to say that none have quite so explosive a start as that of the first Met League fixture at Claybury. It’s partly down to the fact that for most of us it’s also the first cross-country race of the season. We’ve had a long spring and summer of roads and track, of racing on smooth surfaces denuded of grass and soil. It’s partly because there isn’t much space behind the starting line to accommodate us all. We are four hundred and more, boxed in together, jumpy with anticipation. The air is warm — hot, even — and already the unmistakable tang of too many too-warm men is in the air. But I think it’s mainly because of the nature of this particular race’s opening stretch.
From the start line we have barely fifty yards of flat, open ground before the course squeezes into a tunnel of sorts, barely wide enough for three abreast. Knowing this, we all start off as if in a 100-yard dash, with not a thought of the five whole miles we will actually be required to run. Shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh, we must manoeuvre into the gap and avoid losing position. Which wouldn’t be too bad if this tunnel wasn’t also a sharp descent, leading us down and down into further turmoil.
Our legs disappearing beneath us, our arms in the air like-we-just-don’t-care, we push and are pushed, we stumble, trip and and try not to fall. Most of us have sharp spikes attached to our soles; fall on your hands here and they’re very likely to be stigmata’d (stigmatised?). The atmosphere is at once edgy and panicked. ‘Easy guys!’ someone shouts (the kind of person who always shouts). ‘Watch it Watch it WATCH IT … fuck!’, says another to no-one else’s benefit but his own. The rest of us keep our heads down, watching our feet and each other, and soon, before it’s barely even begun, we are on flat land again and the running — or stampeding — can begin anew. We’re off: the cross-country season has begun.
In my case, it promises to be a busy season. A glute injury towards the end of August put paid to my autumn marathon plans, and since then one target after another (a 10k here, a half marathon there) has been either cancelled or run at an easier pace, as the injury took longer and longer to heal. The objective for 2016 had always been to finish it with a decent marathon time. Now that there’s no chance of that happening, I’ve shifted the focus to cross-country. Short races, soft ground, lots of competition and plenty of opportunities; between now and spring I fully intend to make the most of what’s on offer. At the time of writing, I have at least another nine or ten cross-country races pencilled in before spring comes around. And it all starts today, with the Met League, at Claybury, in the red and royal blue of Barnet & District AC.
Not that this is the moment to enjoy it. We may be on the flat now, I may be surrounded by an array of quality runners, all doing their clubs proud, but this no time to take in the spectacle. I’ve realised that I’m too far back. Not burly or pushy enough to manage these opening scraps with much success, I’m further down the field than I feel ought to be and the path is still narrow. It’s a lot of work to weave in and out, not least because I’m clearly far from being the only person who is eager to push up the field and fast. More than at any other race, the positioning in the first half mile at Claybury is a mess. Too many slower runners are up near the front, and the rest have to work through and round them and each other to get where they need to be.
Gradually, I make my way up the field (or at least I think I do; I’m also being overtaken by plenty of others making their way to where they feel they ought to be, i.e. far in front of the likes of me). No sooner am I settled in a position and a pace I think I can sustain than we hit the hill. A short, sharp ascent, steep enough to change your stance, your running action and your mind about why the hell you ever thought doing this would be a good idea. But, hold your position, listen to the supporters’ words of encouragement — even if they’re not meant for you — and keep going. No sooner have you reached the top, then it’s back down the other side — just as steep, if not steeper (it’s not running, it’s ‘falling with style’ — or lack thereof), a crazily sharp turn at the bottom and then it’s flattish ground for a half mile or more till we’re back at the start and all set for two more laps of the same. Perfect.
And Claybury today is perfect. At least the conditions are. It’s warm but not uncomfortably so; it’s dry and the ground is hard. Hard enough in fact to make spikes more a hindrance than a necessity. Plenty of other runners, I notice, are wearing trainers, and there are points along the course when I wish I was one of them. The course itself has everything you could hope for in a cross-country race at this time of year: set in a beautiful park in one of London’s north-eastern extremities, its loop winds up and down, along paths and through wooded areas. Each of the three laps has enough variation to keep you from thinking too much. No sooner is one challenge overcome than another presents itself. And it’s always fairly narrow, which means that you’re never out on your own; at every moment you feel yourself to be an active participant in a race.
The second lap goes quickly, I keep up a steady pace, and get through it, the possibility of that familiar twitch in the glute flaring up always at the back of my mind. But it doesn’t happen. I’m halfway through the third and final lap before I can feel confident that I’m actually going to finish the race, and I’m both glad and surprised to find I still have strength enough in the legs and fire enough in the belly to have a go at a decent finish. I push on and manage not to lose position at all in the last half mile. One last sprint and it’s done. In the tunnel at last, suddenly waiting in line while our numbers are written down and the funnel slowly clears — as if queuing for a bus, but in a vest, and while struggling for breath.
I don’t know if it’s because of the weather, but this year’s Claybury seems bigger and quicker than in previous years. A look at the results the following day show this to be the case. Last year, I finished 79th. This time around I am about 20 seconds quicker, but finish in 90th position. The winner, Richard Goodman, also won last year’s race. His time in 2015 was 24.36, he too is 20 seconds faster this year. It’s worth spending a moment thinking about the runners at the front, or more to the point, just how many of them are. In this year’s race, the first 29 runners all ran the 4.8 miles in under 27 minutes, which is around 5.30/min miling — on a tough course which is far from flat. It’s this kind of strength in depth which attracts so many runners to the Met League, and Claybury, being the first of the season, draws perhaps the biggest field of faster runners.
As for me, I’ll take 90th, and I’m certainly happy to have improved on last year’s time, albeit only marginally. Given the glute injury, it’s better than I’d thought. Barnet came 8th (Division 1), which is out of the relegation zone and very close on points to Hillingdon and Victoria Park in the two positions above us, so job done in that respect. Having turned 40 in August, I also now score for the Vets team. I was second for Barnet, and the tenth V40 overall. Next up in the Met League is Stevenage, but before then I have a different cross-country race, in a very different vest.
