Midsummer Murder Mile

It's only a mile, one sodding mile. I run loads of them. So why, at this small race in a Welsh valley, am I standing on the start line more nervous than I would be at most other events?

The mile is a hellish race, one which many non runners don't really understand. "But you run further than that all the time.” They say slightly perplexed. “A mile is easy!". Except that it’s really not.

Happy faces before the start, at this point I think we were in denial about what we were going to do!

A mile is a hideous distance to run. You start off at sprint, by one hundred meters you are ready to stop, keel over and quit running forever. By half distance you would give anything to feel how you did at one hundred meters. Your whole body is filled with searing pain, there are no other feelings, no emotions except a panic about how long you can keep going and how far away the finish line is. The last half is just plain torture, it’s a fight between you, your body and the messages it’s sending your brain, telling you to stop this madness.

At the finish you are reduced to a quivering wreck, unable to remember your name, unable to say it if you could remember. If you can stand you are reduced to a hobble, that's if you are lucky. Most people after a mile are unable to peel themselves off the road. The worst thing though is your lungs. In the space of a few minutes you have been transformed from a relatively fit runner to someone who sounds like they have been smoking forty a day from their early teens. In short, a mile completely breaks you.

And that was a normal mile on a pancake flat piece of road. This mile is slightly different, hence the rather menacing name of the Murder Mile. The tarmac lane in front of me disappears from view as it goes up, then up again and up some more before going up a bit further. Yep, this mile is up the side of a rather large hill.

In case we had forgotten just how steep that hill was, the organisers provide us runners with a couple of reminders. First of we have to drive up the course to get to the car park, which is hard enough in itself. After a lot of revs in first gear and probably burning though most of my clutch we make the summit, to then be told we have to walk back down to the start. We leave the smell of clutch wafting on the summer breeze and head all the way back down to base camp. 

It's so steep even this is hard work and we are left standing at the start with Jelly legs even before the race has even begun. These gentle reminders of how difficult the course is bring back the nauseous feeling from the finish last year. I remember now, it's all coming back to me, this race is bloody horrible, it's self induced torture! I'm starting to have second thoughts but then I guess there is only one way back to my car which is perched on top of the hill.

We were less happy after the walk to the start and realising just how steep the hill was!

I've done this event twice before. I can confidently say that last year it was the worst I felt after finishing a race. It took me a while to realise I wasn't going to collapse and then lot longer before I was confident I could keep the contents of my stomach down!

So why do it? Why put myself through this pain? As I'm contemplating this along with why I run, the meaning of life and other such questions, the race director, in the brightest of bright hoodies steps into the lead car and in one of the most understated starts I can remember simply shouts go! A count down would have been good with maybe a hooter or klaxon but then that doesn't really fit with the slightly random nature of this race. Other races have starts like that and this, most definitely is not like other races.

So off we run through the now familiar burning smell of clutch as we start the ascent back up to the finish and salvation. No backing out now then. It's only a mile.

The first part of the run is deceptive, the adrenaline of the start takes over and you feel good, the first third doesn't seem so steep. Past the locals sitting on chairs with their bottles of wine everything still feels ok. It's tempting to stop and enjoy a tipple of Chateauneuf du Taff but this section of the course feels fairly flat and besides, I'm already a third of the way in, this really ain't so bad.

And then it hits you, at about half way the road really ramps up, we are now running up something that Eddie the Eagle could have used it as a training jump.

The ironic thing for such a steep run is that it's actually the flatter bits that get you. Just before the ski jump, the road flattened out a bit, tricking you into running quicker, sapping the precious energy you need further up the hill. Just as you start the main traverse you find your legs are no longer able to do what you want.

The first year I was determined to run the whole thing. This turned out to be a stupid idea. I found this out the hard way when, with my lungs pretty much exploding, other competitors started walking past me. At this, the steepest point of the climb, walking is definitely quicker!  

And so the run walk begins. Walk for most of it then a short run past any crowds on the side, just to try and look a little more respectable for any pictures.

Putting on a sprint of sorts past the camera!

The worst thing to do is to look at the Garmin, it seems to be stuck in a time warp, numbers click over so slowly. I have to be going quicker than this, it has to be broken.

And still the road goes up, in the distance though there is a sign, on which the organisers have rather amusingly scrawled 200m to go now sprint! Ha, I wish!

Finally you get to the turn that signals the finish. Mercifully the farm track that takes you there is flat, oh so flat. I could stop and kiss this rather muddy concrete but that will probably affect my finish position so maybe later.

With fifty meters to go I try to do what the sign said and fire up my best Usain Bolt impression, except there's a problem. My legs no longer seem attached to my body. No matter what I do, what messages my brain tries to send them, they don't want to go forward. Far from Bolt my sprint looks more like Brains from Thunderbirds.

Finally though I cross the line. The usual jubilation of finishing a race has got to wait for a few minutes while I first piece myself back together again.

Happy its all over

An hour later, now sat in the pub with a drink and some grub I'm starting to feel a bit more human again.The mind is a rather amazing/slightly stupid thing. Already it's blanking out how much pain I was in during the run and trying to convince me that I actually enjoyed it. Endorphins start to dance around my body and I'm already in complete denial. That was bloody good fun, I do love the mile. Same time next year then people?

The view from the top almost made the run worth it!