"Each step forward has a sacred meaning of its own"   Sri Chinmoy

Weston Prom 5 - September 2022 - Weston Super Mare

After doing 4 races in around 4 weeks I realised that I had lost a lot of fitness while training for a long swim and therefore neglecting my running and cycling. As far as cycling was concerned some longer rides and hopefully and Audax or two in the Autumn seemed the way to go, but with running I knew I had to either get a lot more quality interval and tempo sessions in, or - and this was the more appealing option - race myself fit. It's worked for me before, but at the same time it's gone wrong for me before (turning niggles into full-blown injuries) but I'd enjoyed being back out racing so much that this clinched it for me and I signed up for the whole series at Weston. I think there are 9 races in the series, monthly 5-milers on a perfectly flat and fast course, each held on a Thursday evening from September through to May.

The first Prom Run came on September 15th and conditions were as close to perfect as they can be on Weston sea front. The announcer said there was very little wind and in relative terms that was true, but Weston is never free of sea-breeze and you always feel it hit you heading one way or the other. The other  amusing part of the announcements was that the course was narrow "because of sea monster". Anyone not from round here might wonder what on earth was going on but everyone present knew that this was actually See Monster, the rig that has been towed in and turned into a beach-front art installation. Lit up after the race it made an amazing sight in the gathering darkness, but pre-race and during I had other things on my mind. I did have time to pause and drink in the view over the Bristol Channel before I warmed up, but then I got moving and tried to get the best part of 30 minutes jogging into my legs before I subjected them to race pace. I did a few accelarations but mostly kept it easy through the warmup. Before the race there was a period of silence as the race was taking place during the 10 days of national mourning for the recently departed Queen Elizabeth II.

After the silence, the countdown, then the start. I eased myself into it and tried to run based on heart rate so as not to blow it and fade later on. Over recent months this has worked really well for me, but as I'm not in peak racing shape the benefits are hard to quantify. I always finish more strongly than I used to but is it really better in terms of overall time than the old fly-and-die, flat out approach? Time will tell.

Anyway on this Prom Run I was running by heart rate to start with, aiming to stay between 160-170 and not overcook it. I started a few seconds back from the fast runners on the line and got up to race pace pretty quick as we slowly strung out along the promenade from a big bunch to series of small packs with ever widening gaps between. The evening sun was sinking and it was a cool with a breeze that hit us after we turned at the first cone. I had the Garmin set to half mile laps so I got regular updates on my pace and I was roughly where I wanted to be, on target for 33-something. From then on it was intense, reeling in the miles along the prom up to the huge archway and the ever-receding turnaround point - back down to the south end of the seafront where cars were parked on the sand and dog walkers were hurling every kind of ball and frisbee for their eager dogs hoping to tire them out with minimum effort. I was tiring too but managing to stay on pace and slowly work my way up the field.

Dusk was gathering and the lights were brighter against the gloom on the second northward section, my pace staying steady and my heart rate climbing. I held on until the final turn to really let loose and go deep into the red, and there was nothing in the way of a sprint at the finish just a slightly faster last half mile. Chip time was 3.15 and gun time - the real race time - was 3.22.

I warmed down slowly on the grass level with See Monster for around 10 minutes then thought it was best to head home without hanging around. Results were up very soon, live from the chip system, and I was 80th overall from around 240. My goal is going to be to try and stay fit/uninjured and if that goes to plan I'll aim for under 33:00 - and see if I can get back down close to 32 which would put me theoretically in 40-minute shape for a 10k. I've no idea if i have that in my legs or not but it's something to aim for.

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Just as a postscript I have to mention my recovery run on Saturday after this race. I was in Battersea helping at our Sri Chinmoy 24 Hour race on the track, but had some downtime and went for a run with Gianluca who was over from Dublin. He was keen to see Run and Become so we jogged over there (less than 2 miles) and had a good browse around but they were hyper busy (Saturday shoe-fitting) and so we didn't hand around. We were aiming to make a long loop of it back over the river on Vauxhall Bridge but somehow we found ourselves running up towards Westminster on crowded pavements (the whole world seemed to be gathering for the royal funeral) and I fancied seeing how close we could get to Westminster Abbey or Parliament Square - without getting mixed up in the Lying in State queue on the other side of the Palace of Westminster. All went fine until we crossed a road at a crowded pestrian crossing and found ourselves in a really packed section of pavement with police stationed every few metres - I soon realised we had unwittingly joined THE QUEUE. Now this queue was the only item on the national news for days on end and the entire focus of almost the whole nation's attention so to blunder into it accidentally was poignant, strange and funny all at the same time. We made a sharp exit.

Navigating through a few side streets we came out of the modern architecture and were suddenly in the medieval world, looking up at the towers of Westminster Abbey and the nearby church of St Margaret. There were barriers and police stopping us from crossing over to Parliament Square but this as an awesome sight in its own right, with much of the world's attention on this square mile of London at that time it seemed as if we were very much at the centre of something - with the crowds and the TV crews and the randoms like ourselves all passing through. Gianluca was interested in the MI5 building from having seen it in Bond movies and Battersea Power Station - now converted to flats - which he and I both knew best from the Pink Floyd album cover.

Soon after the Floyd conversation we were back in Battersea Park with around 6 miles clocked up, ready for our stint checking laps or handing out drinks. It was an epic race where Karteek got a PB, Emanuels became a centurion, Agnieska did her first 24 hour race to finish in 2nd place, Mahasatya was first of the centre runners with well over 100 and Raquel was 3rd.

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