Wednesday was supposed to be a big day: my debut pacing at an actual race – the Chase the Moon at the Olympic Park . It had taken me some time to get a 70 minute slot, having had to cancel in October after I tore my calf and then finding all the slots taken (mostly by the same person). I was nervous, of course, but after several very successful stints of pacing 35 at Mile End parkrun, I knew I could do the pace very well. My main source of worry was running with the pacer flag on my back, but I figured that other people seemed to do it with no issues so it couldn’t as bad as it looked.
Rule number one: just because other people can do something easily, it doesn’t mean I can do it, because other people don’t have all the issues that come with being me.
My problems with the flag were:
- It weighed a lot more than I thought it would.
- It was attached to a backpack-like contraption, and no matter how much I tightened the straps it was miles too big and bounced around. I demonstrated to several people that I needed to grow boobs as big as my fists and then it would fit perfectly.
- I have no sense of balance or where my body parts are at the best of times; when you at a large protruberance that I can’t see everything gets ten times worse. I nearly decapitated one of the other pacers merely adjusting my shoelaces.
Anyway, there was no option but to run with it, so to speak, so off I went, cursing and muttering as the stupid thing bounced up and down, flapped in the wind and caught against a sign reading “give it some welly”. I felt like wellying the blasted encumberance right into the River Lea. No wonder people like to burn flags!
But worse was to come! At the end of the first lap the flappy component of the flag decided to detach itself from the pole. A runner very kindly picked it up and handed it back to me and my pacees offered to help with the reassembly mission, but I felt that would be counterproductive since I am supposed to be helping them, not vice versa, so I stopped and rammed the flag back onto its pole with the help of a marshal. It was a bit obstinate and the whole exercise took 40 seconds, so I then had to sprint for my life to get back to where I was meant to be. All this palaver, however, seemed to dislodge the flag pole from the backpack and it slowly sunk until it was at right angles. It was in grave danger of causing a large pile up. The 35 minute 5k pacer very kindly took pity on me and tried to stick it back in, but even when he gave it some welly it just wouldn’t cooperate. I was in grave danger of losing the pace altogether so I decided to part ways with the flag and hand it to the capable hands of superstar volunteer Cyril.
Now I only had a neon yellow pacer t-shirt with no time on it to identify me I felt a bit impotent and felt I needed to shout “I am the 1:10 pacer! Follow me for 1:10!” into the abyss at regular intervals, though really most of the people running at my pace had taken the 5k option anyway. Slower pacers don’t usually get a big group around them anyway – people generally use us as a bookmark or something to run away from – but I wasn’t really sure anyone was aware of my presence or that I was at all useful. To be perfectly honest I felt a bit rubbish and quite tempted to take off the top and speed up to get the last lap alone in the dark over and done with. I was quite happy to see someone slowing down in front of me so I could loom ominously behind her and give her, I hoped, a push to get over the finish line under 70 minutes. I was pleased to see a couple of people finishing not far behind me, both of whom I see were hovering around the 1:10 mark, and I got a thank you afterwards which made me feel a bit better. My finish time was 1:09:32 which isn’t nearly as close as I have been getting at parkrun but, pace wise, I think I did a lot better for a first timer than some pacers I have experienced (I will never quite get over the 35 minute pacer at one parkrun who ran ~4.9k in 30 minutes, then hid in a bush until the 36 minute pacer – me – appeared then sprinted to the finish getting dead on 35) but hope to do better next time. And next time will be the 35 minute flag at Battersea Park in March, where I shall be bringing a flag repair kit, growing absolutely massive boobs and definitely avoiding “give it some welly” at all costs.
7:07 