While we’d all love to think that our best race is still ahead of us, for most runners there’s a race or a couple of races that already stand out as particularly memorable. Not necessarily the fastest you’ve ever run, though it might be. Not necessarily a race that you won, though it might be.
What it tends to be, is a race that was deeply satisfying because you achieved what you were hoping to…or surpassed the big hairy audacious goal that you’d set yourself. They’re the kind of races where you sit back later in the day and think, “I may run faster one day but, on this day, in the shape I was in, that’s the best I could have possibly done…my best race so far”. That’s a great feeling.
It’s a sad thing if we can’t enjoy what we’ve already accomplished or are so driven by the pursuit of the goals we have ahead that we miss the opportunity to say ‘that one? that one was really good’.
These are the stories of a bunch of different runners from BT RunClub and their best races so far.
We hope these stories will inspire you as you chase your ‘best race so far’.
Here’s to the best races ahead…and running the race marked out before us.
——
JULY:
SIMON WEBSTER AND THE NUMBER 19 TRAM
In memory of my friend Matt Allpress, a true original
On October 30, 2013 Matt posted one last photo from his twitter account. It was a snapshot of a page from Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The lowermost line read:
“It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here’s where things grow.”
A few weeks later, whilst trekking through the Annapurna massif of Nepal, something happened. At first, all we knew was what hadn’t happened: Matt hadn’t made it home.
The news found me on a Tuesday morning. I had woken early for training, and was still coming to when I read the confusing status updates. Not so much confusing in their words, but in the absurdity of their implication. Matt was missing. The possible area was large. 10 blank days stretched between his scheduled arrival home and his last confirmed sighting in Nepal. ‘Himalayan radio silence,’ Matt called it.
I got out of bed and joined the rest of my team, and, not knowing what else to do, I ran. I had been running for around 6 months, and things were starting to come together, but that morning was something of a breakthrough. Where on other days I might have pulled back, slowed – given in to the heaviness in my legs, the fire in my lungs – I didn’t. I ignored the pain and just ran. My mind was thousands of miles away, scanning high and low over an imagined landscape. When I got home there were messages waiting for me. We were all hopeful, but confused. None of us knew anything really. But there was hope, mainly because we knew him. The simplest answers were often the least relevant with Matt.
Over time, it started to seem less and less likely that he would be found. And yet, to me, it was impossible that he wouldn’t be. This was Allpress – you couldn’t apply normal rules to him. He was walking to his own beat, somewhere, surely.
…
As the weather warmed in Perth, Nepal chilled. The mountains frosted with snow at ever decreasing altitudes. Eventually, the searches were suspended. It was too cold for the dogs, visibility too poor for flyovers. My life moved sideways, as life does, and I thought of Matt from time to time. I travelled to South America over Christmas, and spent a month in the mountains of Patagonia. Every day it felt like we were hanging out, that where he was must be just like this. I came home, uni started up again, work rolled on, and I ran.
…
In early 2014, I signed up for my first proper race: the Gold Coast 10km. An 18-week program lay ahead of me, and I tore into it. Running had begun to give me order where order wasn’t. None of it was easy, so all of it was worthwhile. It felt wholesome, like eating your crusts. It felt earned, considered.
Wary of putting too much into the end point, I told myself, ‘it’s the sides of the mountain…where things grow’. And each week there was something new to be learnt, to overcome.
In mid-May, my program reached its peak with my ‘festival of running’. A festival happens about 5 weeks out from race day, and is typically the biggest week of a program, in terms of both mileage and intensity. For me, it would be the first time I’d sum more than 100km in 7 days. Things started out well – my time in the mountains had given me a base, and the following few months of my program had sharpened me. I was running better than ever, and was enjoying it like never before. And then one morning before training, as it had happened the previous November, I woke to news of Matt.
Nothing was certain, but remains had been found. They thought it was him. I knew it was him. I joined my team in the car park, and we ran down to the river. It was a Thursday. We ran milers. Five of them, with a short break in between, along the South Perth foreshore. I don’t remember the temperature that morning, whether stuffy or crisp, nor if the river was choppy or flat, but I remember running those miles in a tight pack. I remember Jarrad pushing the early reps. I remember Rob somehow managing to joke amidst the humour-sucking session. I remember Pete and Simon running strong late. And then on the fifth rep, I remember just running. And saying to myself over and over, ‘it’s time to come home, now. It’s time to come home.’
The rest of the pack fell behind. I recall passing the clump of trees, but nothing else of the mile. I remember Simon coming up to me afterwards with this look of, wow, across his face. I couldn’t look anyone straight in the eye, cause I knew I’d fall apart. I was spent. I’d given it everything.
To this day, of the more than 13,500 recorded attempts by over 2,300 people, the fifth mile I ran that morning still stands as the quickest.
In the week that followed, a friend and I went and sat at a place we call Mocha Point, perched high above the river, and toasted the impossibly short and inconceivably original life of Matt. For a while afterwards, I found it hard to be happy at the end of a run. I didn’t think I could will another one like that out of me. But I kept turning up.
Two weeks out from the race, I felt a weird pain at the side of my knee. The next day I couldn’t walk.
I took stock: most of the work was done, I told myself. Give it a few days rest. Ice it, take some anti-inflams, sleep. Soon I was Googling remedies – crushed yams and paprika? Smear of oyster juice? I would have injected (or enema’d) anything out of desperation, but Simon calmed me, and I pulled myself together. I remembered: ‘the sides…not the top’. Matt knew this, and lived it. If I were heading for disappointment, it would be my fault for pegging too much on the summit.
I ran a forgettable race, finishing just 2 seconds inside the priority qualifying time. Well, at least I justified my spot, I figured. The next day was the marathon, and with it came two illustrations of how narrow my focus had been. I had wanted to run a certain time – a very specific and ambitious one – which rested on everything going right. In the single-minded pursuit of that summit, I’d missed out on what was growing on the sides.
Like me, injury got Rob, and he had to pull out of the race. The way he handled it was humbling. With a smile, good humoured as always.
Unlike we invalids, Jarrad ran his marathon like he was on borrowed legs. He wasn’t, of course. We’d all seen him earn those legs the hard way in the months leading up. But the way he reacted to his time, with almost shy surprise, spoke of his humility.
I flew to Melbourne the next day, and spent a week with friends, drinking too much beer and mentally unpacking the race. In my head I wrapped it up as a lesson in disappointment. Was that the one way I could turn the thing into a win? Was that the one way I could make this my best race ever? Well, as I’d find out, the mountains have sides both on the way up, and on the way down. Here’s where things grow. I’d get my best race yet.
…
I took a laptop to a café one day, intending to spend some hours tapping away over coffee. I’d forgotten my charger, so my computer was useless, but Elliott lent me his. Accompanying it was a warning: my Masters Thesis is on there.
Don’t worry, I told him. I’ll take care of it.
But his laptop case was unfamiliar, as was being on a tram, as was the street I was tracking up. I noticed I had reached my stop just in time to jump off, and 30 seconds later, I noticed that the unfamiliar laptop case was no longer in my hand. I’d left it on the rambling number 19 tram, which was growing smaller by the second.
I hadn’t run since the race – my knee’d been too sore. I was wearing jeans, a jacket, and my DBs. The tram was a hundred meters away and gaining, about to disappear over a crest. But I had to catch it.
I started running. Not as bad as I’d feared, pain wise. Good. Up ahead, I saw some people hop off, and others on, as the tram momentarily stopped. The light changed and it shuddered off again. I kept running. The footpath was crowded, and I was shaving grannies with my elbows in my efforts to dodge at speed, so I jumped down onto the road. I ran in the bike lane – bless you Fitzroy! – and it felt freshly good to be moving fast again. Strange how quickly you can forget. Up ahead, saboteur cyclists rode at sweat-avoidant speeds. I wove through, overtaking on left and right. The pack called out to me in a tone that suggested uncertainty: is he a criminal under pursuit, or a doctor running to a dying man?
The next set of lights went red, the tram already beyond them, and traffic began to blur perpendicular to my path. I approached the intersection with not a thought of slowing, and spotted a gap about to open. I goose-stepped through to a hail of car horns, and my face split into a smile.
The tram had halted about four times to pick up and let off passengers. Each time it did I would gain on it, and each time it rumbled off again I would fight to not lose any ground. After the fifth stop I looked up ahead. My legs were sacks of acid – I’d have one more shot at it.
The light changed. Traffic clotted. The tram stopped.
I caught it, disbelieving, my head spinning, and rapped on the door. The driver opened it, but I couldn’t speak. At that moment, a lady reached the front of the tram, carrying the laptop bag. She was handing it in. I pointed at it, and she understood. The whole tram did. I took it from her, stumbled down the steps, and collapsed against a wall. Everyone on the tram burst into laughter.
The fifty thumbs up I got did nothing to soothe my head, as my heart walloped my extremities with urgent blood supply. I leaned over sideways and my mouth became a tap, which promised to jet out all the hot acid bubbling inside of me at any moment, but never did. Fifteen minutes later, I saw Elliott, further up Sydney Road. I got to my feet, just, and zombied after him. He saw his computer, remembered our arrangement, and asked, ‘all done?’
‘Yep,’ I told him, though I’m sure the question he was asking, and the answer I was giving, were from different galaxies.
So that’s my best race so far. Me vs. the Number 19 Tram. Course record for Sydney Road, from stop ___ to stop ___. I’m not sure I’ll ever have a better one, though I’ll leave myself open to being surprised. If a race does come along that can teach me more than this one – this whole race, not just the top, but the sides of it, too – then I’ll consider myself lucky.
And if a life comes along that can touch more than Matt’s did, then we’ll all be damn lucky.
Rest in peace, or shine on, you crazy diamond. Or do whatever you will, however you’ll do it, just as you always have.
