It was that eternal pre-race dilemma: where should I position myself at the start? Too far back and I’ll waste valuable seconds snaking through the plodders. Too far forward and I’ll be getting consistently overtaken. What to do?
First, some context. I’d come to the Standard Chartered 5K, a well-established, well-attended road race filled with city types all looking to knock points off one another.
Having looked at last year’s results, the winner, Phil Wicks, had finished in less than 15 minutes. I was aiming for about 18 minutes, a time that would put me just outside the top 100. So it was simple, then: I just had to stand in the front 100 people at the start.
But it’s rarely that simple, is it?
In my hurry to get forward, I somehow found myself practically in the front row. To my left were a couple of top runners from my club, Herne Hill Harriers. To my right was Phil Wicks. A couple of yards ahead was Paula Radcliffe. I had no business being this high up the field.
But what are you going to do? Apologise, mutter something about getting over-excited and slope to the back? Of course not. Besides, I couldn’t have moved if I’d wanted to; we were packed in like sardines.
So the countdown happened and we all hared off. I was conscious that I was probably running far too fast but it’s only 5K so you have to attack it. The support on the course was of an interesting variety. It essentially consisted of members of the suit-and-tie brigade gathered outside pubs showering me with such motivational phrase as: “You’re being beaten by a girl” and “Give up now – you’ve already lost.”
Both of these happened to be true, of course, but it’s not exactly what you need to hear when you’ve set off too fast and are desperately hanging on.
And, by this point, I really was hanging on. A steady stream of people began to overtake me. I tried to fight it, to match their stride, but I was a fading force.
‘I must be doing really badly,’ I thought. Then the finish line came into view and a clock that was still showing 17 minutes. I sprinted to the finish, crossing the line in 18:10 (although I didn’t have a chip, so you’ll have to take my word for it). That’s an unofficial PB for me. The moral? Be bold, start close to the front.
