by Kazeem Olalekan
On the 25th of October 2009, I took part in the Great South run to raise money for Sickle Cell Society(link). The race was held at Portsmouth, a waterfront city in the south of England with great naval heritage. I am reliably informed that the city has the world’s oldest dry dock and is the home of Vice Admiral Nelson’s (of the Battle of Trafalgar fame) flagship HMS Victory. I should check this out one of these days (link + link). The race itself is 10miles long and represents a great challenge for me. The only long distance race I have ever done is the Lymington 10k race in May of this year(10/05/2009 + link). So as you can gather, I am no athlete!
The preparation:
Before even considering practise, I had to be sure I could partake in the race. The demand for a place on a race like this one is always high and I was concerned that I might not be able to get on. So Iforg Limited put up a £200 fund to support RNLI Lifeboats and was therefore able to race for them. RNLI Lifeboats (link) is a great charity that ‘aims to save lives by changing attitudes and behaviour among people who use the sea regularly’. Once I got on the race, the preparation started in earnest. My set aims were to complete the race and maybe achieve a better time than I managed in the previous 10k race (5.4mins/km).
Frankly the preparation did not go as well as I had planned. I posted my intentions on this blog in August (link) with the plan to tweet my training updates regularly @iforg. As you can see the following were the tweets I managed before the race:
2009-08-22 21:43:22
Half an hour at the gym today and the training for race (http://bit.ly/kmiSB) begins in earnest. Gosh I should do this more often.
2009-08-24 21:50:51
Training run today: Distance: 5.5km Pace 6′30″min/km Calories burnt: 391 kcal. (http://bit.ly/kmiSB). Its a start!
2009-08-25 17:27:51
One and a half hour gentle warm down at the gym today. I am getting used to this. (http://bit.ly/kmiSB).
2009-08-28 04:53:28
Just been for a jog round the block today: Distance: 3.74km Pace 6′47″min/km Calories burnt: 266 kcal. (http://bit.ly/kmiSB). Not Good!
<2009-09-10 20:33:19
Been a bit slack with my training: Dist.Today: 2.71km Pace 6′16″min/km Calories burnt: 193kcal. (http://bit.ly/kmiSB). Time 4 more action!
My last tweet was my attempt to re-motivate myself but things got in the way of my training and it just didn’t happen. As the week of the race approached I started to get a bit jittery. How the hell I’m I going to complete this race?!** So I had to re-focus my mind on the job at hand. So I earmarked the week beginning the 19th of October to be my make or break week (I still had my day job to attend to of course). Luckily for me, my wife and daughter were on holiday that week and meant I could focus on the race. That week, I did some light training at the gym and on Wednesday 21st, I woke up at 4am (not nice!) and ran the perimeters of my local common – for 2.5hours! Clearly I was exhausted but continue the light training on Thursday and Friday. By now I had revised my aims to just finishing the race and that the time it takes was now insignificant! Of course, I know myself. I know what I can and cannot do. I also know what my body was capable of coping with. Over the years, I have learnt that the first few miles were the most difficult for me. Once I can get over that, then I can usually sustain the distance (or so I thought!).
Race day
On race day(25th October 2009), I had a hearty breakfast of potato and cheese – microwaved! (I call it my “sustainability feast”). I arrived at Portsmouth at 7:00am in order that I may execute my final strategy for the race. The city of Portsmouth was buzzing with excitement for the race. My strategy was simple: I was going to run for about an hour before the race so that I can overcome the fatigue of the first few miles – Odd? I know! I can be odd sometimes. I executed my first strategy without any drama and returned to the car to relax and set myself up for the race. Then I got a call from a friend who had to go to Nigeria because his dad was involved in an accident. He called me that morning to tell me his dad lost the battle for his life. A tragedy indeed and I offered my condolence. Yet another reason to finish this race!
The race
There was all the razzmatazz associated with this kind of race. There was this guy hoist up high in a crane-type contraption (for want of better words) priming us up with ‘warm up’ exercises to some fantastic rhythm. I was meant to be warming up but I sort up ended up bopping to the beat! I quickly bought myself 4 sugar doughnuts and gulp it down about 30 minutes before the race. ‘Doh!’ I thought ‘I might live to regret this’. What do you know, I needed a sugar fix and I got it. Call it a treat.
And so the race began in earnest. I had only ran less than 2 yards when I felt a twinge on my right calf…and then on my left. ‘Damn’ I thought to myself ‘If I had to pull off now, I will be disappointed with myself’. However if my strategy has been wrong all along then I will have learn from it but for now I am not going to give up yet. So I applied a little bit of what I know: I started to concentrate on my breathing whilst reducing my pace. I wanted to get as much oxygen to my calf as possible. If it works: good; if it doesn’t: then I will have to pull up – race over! For the next 3 miles I felt nothing on my calves and I sighed with relief and race proceeded.
“Why is a mile so long?” I thought to myself. The mile markers for the race seems to take ages to appear. This is going to be harder than I thought. At the back of my mind was the need to finish. So when my body was struggling, I walked briskly. The rest of the race was a mixture of running, jogging and walking. Some spectators were there encouraging me along whilst other might be thinking: ‘why is he walking?’ This is all the more poignant at about the 5-miles mark when I was passed by two remarkable ladies: One was short and you could describe as overweight – you know the ones that you might think was unfit on appearance alone and by another lady who looked like she was old enough to be my mother. Yes, they both ran past me! Guess what? They did so with panache whilst I was struggling to catch my breathe. Hey, I didn’t mind. This was my race and as far I was concerned, I was running my own race.
You know I said earlier I can usually sustain the distance? Guess what I couldn’t! By the time I got to the 10k mark I was starting to wonder why I was doing this. ‘If this was a 10k race it will be finished now’ I thought. But this time I still have over 6km to go – Damn!! By this time I had drenched myself in water to cool me down but that just wasn’t enough. My legs were beginning to give up the ghost! I was hopping now and I just felt my race is going to come to an abrupt end very soon. The wind at this time was so strong it was just impeding my progress. Then another lady ran past me and said ‘C’mon don’t stop – you are my mark‘ Clearly this lady has been running behind me all along using me as her race target. Only problem is she had just ran past me. ‘You will have to find another mark’ I thought to myself.
As I struggle along, something remarkable happened. This guy (also running – I call him my ‘guardian angel‘) tapped on my shoulder and said ‘c’mon you can do it: just keep jogging’. What he said connected with me somehow and he became my mark. I will jog with him, jog behind him and sometime jog in front of him – what was important was I was jogging. There was a time when he was about 1km ahead of me and I ran past him and kept running until the finish line was visible. I started to sprint, as hard as my body will let me and I finished ahead of my ‘guardian angel’. And that was it. I had done it. I had finished the challenge. Whilst during the race there was no way I would contemplate running this distance again, I somehow feel I may consider it again as I run past the finishing line.
The Aftemath
Frankly my finishing time was not important but I couldn’t help myself. So I went to the race website to check my time for the race and it wasn’t there! My time was not recorded! Why? Because I made a silly mistake. I was meant to attach the magnetic token to my shoes but I attached to my shorts! I later realise that the device will only work when attached to the shoes. So I can only speculate as to my finish time. I probably ran the 10miles in 2 or 2.5 hours but I will never know exactly! And that is it: You ran a remarkable race but there is no significant record of it. Later that week, I learnt that a great friend of mine gave birth to a bouncing baby boy: Lucca (Light) on the day of the race. This really got me thinking about the remarkable parallels of this race to what this life is all about.
What are these parallels?
The first thing that struck me was this: life as a race is a marathon not a sprint and to earn your place in that race you need to be willing to support worthy causes which may appear to be outside your sphere of interest. You need to have set yourself clear aims and objectives as you embark on the race and understand that things may get in the way. You need to know yourself and understand what you are capable of doing and what you are not capable of doing. Have a strategy, it doesn’t have to be complicated but be mindful of unforeseen tragedies. Be prepared to revise you aims if needs be and it is normal to be odd sometimes. When you reach a milestone, don’t forget to treat yourself to something nice and always learn from your mistakes. Remember to stay focused on the job at hand. Some spectators may encourage you, boo you or even want you to fail but always remember you are not running for the spectators. Do not judge people by virtue of their appearance and remember you are setting examples for others to follow. Always run your own race. Remember that your effort alone is not enough. Something else is needed to see you through the race. You are not in the race for the legacy you leave behind. Frankly you might not even have anything to show for it. From birth to death just make sure you enjoy the journey.
Footnote:
The story described above is a true reflection of my experience of partaking in the great south run. All true. Nothing added and nothing taken out. Please support my quest to raise money for Sickle Cell Society by making a donation through my justgiving page: www.justgiving.com/kazeem
Thanks you so much.
Kazeem Olalekan
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