The Pen

“What is that smell? No, seriously, WHAT is that smell”?!

The race hasn’t even begun, how can someone produce an odour so pungently offensive before we’ve even set off, prior to any exertion which would warrant such perspiration? Or more likely they've neglected to wash their chosen attire since its last outing - a misunderstanding of the term ‘nothing new on Race Day’ perhaps?

The Start Pen is a curious place - the weird and wonderful -  a delightfully eclectic blend of naivety, nerves and narcissism. Sugar, stretching and spouting. The bigger the occasion, the wider the kaleidoscope of participant personalities, though to be fair - even the smallest of fields at parkrun are capable of amassing a comprehensively colourful contingent. 

The choice of where to position oneself is always an interesting one, and one which should surely be made relative to ability. I’m firmly in the ‘conservative’ camp and line up a little back from where, judging solely from the visual appearance of my fellow competitors, I believe I belong. This tactic has several preventative benefits - it will likely stop me from going off too fast, being a hazard to other (faster) runners behind, and lessens the probability of dismay as the more-able effortlessly leave you panting in their wake.

I’m dumbfounded by the dishonesty of predicted times at mass events like the Great North Run. Not even a mile has passed before they’re heaving beneath the Tyne Bridge, constantly barged and bounced across the Tyneside tarmac whilst suffering the inevitable demoralisation as fifty five thousand people go streaming past. It’s a lose/lose tactic. 

The ‘visual’ approach can backfire however as running is somewhat of a deceptive sport - an entrant who would be traditionally perceived as ‘looking the part’ doesn’t always have the capabilities to match their appearance, and I’ve lost count of the times I’ve watched the figure of someone I’d arrogantly assumed to be slower than myself, disappear far ahead into the distance. 

I feel a hand on my shoulder as the eighth person in as many minutes pushes past, “‘s’cuse me pal”, jostling through the crowd to the front to be up there with the ‘big lads’. Others adopt an assault from the flank - vaulting the iron barriers with little regard to anyone receiving a lower-limb to the face. From experience there appears around a 5:1 ratio of those who falsely believe they belong with their toe physically on the actual start line, and those who genuinely WILL finish at the front of the field.

I’ve shuffled sideways to let through another offender only to be struck by the end of a plastic baton housing a mobile phone. The other end of the instrument is grasped in the palm of an excitable young woman - “HI GUYS, WE’RE HERE AT THE START OF THE EPIC XXXX 10K”! Her selfie stick commands a ring of unoccupied asphalt around her, participants fearful of assault as she announces that “WE’RE ALL GOING TO SMASH IT”. 

She scares me. The fact such behaviour is seemingly now commonplace scares me more.

A lad about 20 years my younger begins vigorously running on the spot ahead of me - the over enthusiastic, under-realistic newbie, exaggerated high knee movements - the kind of dynamic movement my limbs haven’t seen this side of the millennium. He’ll go full balls-to-the-wall for the first two minutes before chunder-and-lumber for the remainder. In fairness, we’ve all been there. Though I’ve been at this for over a decade so can’t point the finger at ‘beginner buoyancy’ to excuse the delusions of grandeur I’m still occasionally prone to today.

I look down to a sea of carbon fibre. Two brands make up 99% of the footwear in sight. World Beater or Weekend Warrior, it would appear everyone needs to blow £200 on a new fangled pair of kicks. I wish I could say differently, but I’m just another sheep in the densely foam-soled herd. The overwhelming aroma of body odour has now been replaced by an exotic cocktail of Biofreeze, Deep Heat, Vicks Vapour Rub, Lucozade and flatulence from the earlier abundant caffeine/carb consumption of the pen’s inhabitants. Like the fragrance counters at Duty Free, thou shall not pass without an assault on the senses. 

I’m growing restless now, and just want to get going, but still have to endure the strains of ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ and/or ‘Keep On Running’ as it’s apparently incomprehensible to host a race without them. 

Race Licence - Check. Course Measurement - Check. Road Closures - Check. 

Overplayed, cliched, supposed-‘pump song’. Check.

At least I’ve managed to avoid ‘him’. Every race has one, several even. They may be a familiar felon or one you’ve never laid eyes upon, but it’s of little concern to The Enquirer as he skulks around seeking unsuspecting victims upon whom to unleash a tsunami of interrogation and general bullshit. 

“So what time are you gonna run today”? Whatcha going for? How much did you pay for those shoes”? Your response is irrelevant as it’s difficult to manage a syllable before he begins his onslaught of self-absorbed nonsense. “Yeah I probably won’t run a PB today as I ran here from MARS, and I’d have won this race last week but the course was long, Garmin said it was 13.2 Miles, and I was injured as I fell off a cliff the day before and NEARLY DIED. But here I am.” 

The exhausting monologue is accompanied by wild hand gestures and delivered at a decibel that’d be audible in another postcode. At least he’s pitched up in the right spot near the front - given he’s talked relentlessly without taking a breath for the last ten minutes solid, his lung capacity alone would surely put him on the podium. 

My restless state has now been elevated to degrees of excessive irritability - I’ve undergone the Start Line process enough times now to know the drill, but that does little to appease my growing impatience. 

The internal sentiment appears to provoke fate and the announcer fires up his microphone, surely he’s been given the green light, it’s time to get this show on the road. In a few moments we’ll leave behind the burdens, the quirks, the eccentricities of ‘Start Zone’ and be on our way to the strenuous endeavour we each dearly hope to be fruitful - one in which we’ll be so engrossed in effort and eventual discomfort that the pen soon will be a long forgotten detail, a minor inconvenience as we indulge in the very reason we’ve chosen to be here.

I should probably be more forgiving of the assembly around me and their traits - it’s just nervous energy, everyone has their own way of addressing it, and who am I to harbour disgruntlement at the habits, behaviours and decorums on display? My disdain is likely unreasonable, akin to expecting Tesco to be quiet at 5pm on Christmas Eve. 

Either way, it’s of little concern now we’re about to be underway, I can deal with it just fine, no problem whatsoever. Ah yes, just a few more seconds and we’ll be on our way…

The tannoy crackles.

“So, erm, we’re going to be delaying the start by a few minutes”......