Liverpool 5 Miler: Boo(ish)

We pulled into Liverpool about 8:00 am, an hour before the start of the 5 miler (8k). It was already too hot. All the Timex hopefuls were there – we’re a bit like a traveling circus, showing up to small towns to do our thing but never staying long enough to get a real sense of any of these places. It’s a shame, really: none of us knows how these races started and what they represent to the towns hosting them. We just look at the schedule, show up, and run. It’s the same whether the race is in Liverpool or Timbuktu.

This year’s edition of the Liverpool 5 miler was supposed to be somewhat unusual: a bunch of British sailors were scheduled to run. Right now in Halifax there are something like 17 war ships from around the world in port to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Navy. Even the Queen is stopping in for a visit (and screwing up traffic all over the place!). Anyway, someone from the British navy thought this race would be a good thing for a bunch of sailors to do on a Sunday morning – perhaps a little optimistic?

9:00am rolls around and by now things are really hot. The sun has pushed away all the clouds and is beating down on the asphalt. All the runners are huddled under any shade they can find, waiting until the last possible minute to line up. The call to line up goes out, but there are no sailors in sight. As a result, the race director decides to delay the start. We all groan and scatter for the shade again. We just want to get this thing over with, and delaying the start will only make things hotter. As it turns out, the sailors never showed – hardly surprising for a bunch of young guys turned loose on the streets of Halifax for a Saturday night. I’m sure running was the last thing any of them wanted to do the morning after.

We line up for a second time and wait for the gun to go off. For this race, they’ve got three guys in 18th-century British military garb with muskets as the starters – pretty awesome. The muskets go off and we plunge forward into the heat. After the first k, I realize this race is going to be a bit of shit show – I’m feeling terrible, and there are 7k left. For the first 3k, I run shoulder-to-shoulder with N, my training buddy. There are three guys ahead of us, two of whom should be – but the third is a guy we know goes out too quick every race and tries to hang on – he’s somebody to chase. At the same time, I can hear a couple of runners sticking with us: D, the top female, and T, one of the top two 50+ year old runners.

Between 3k and 4k, everything changes. I can hear the folks behind dropping back further and further until I can’t hear them anymore – they’ve gone out too quick and can’t hold the pace. At some point, though, N puts on a little surge and opens up a gap of a few metres on me. I feel like I’m running at capacity, so I don’t respond. However, after the surge, the gap doesn’t widen over the next 3k. All the while, we are cutting the space between us and the guy in third, who’s obviously hurting but holding on. I’m hurting too.

With a k to go, N makes his move. He steps up the pace and starts making up ground on the other guy – and the gap between us gets wider and wider. I want to go with him, but I let him go. In fact, I don’t even go for the other guy – with my mind and body screaming about how much this hurts, I convince myself that it doesn’t matter. I convince myself that my position is good enough, that my Timex points will be good enough, that there’s no reason to hurt more. So I don’t even try to pick up the pace – I just keep putting one foot in front of the other and cross the line in 5th.

It only takes 3 minutes before I start beating myself up for not running courageously. I don’t mind losing to a runner who’s had a better race (like N), but I’m certain I could’ve caught the other guy before the line if I’d just been willing to hurt more – but I wasn’t. Oh well. No big deal. I’m still learning how to race – and being aggressive doesn't come naturally to me. It’s something to work on for the next race in Yarmouth 3 weeks from now.

All in all, it wasn’t a terrible race – I did snag a PB by about 10 seconds on a very hot day on a course that many said was longer than the advertised 5 miles. I’ll take it. And my chances for making the Timex team still look pretty good. But I would’ve liked to poke around Liverpool more – when am I going to make the time to come out this way again? In fact, it’s only now that I’m remembering that the river we were running along (the Mersey) was part of a very old canoe route that cuts right across the province from the Annapolis Royal area in the north to Liverpool in the south. This river that I hardly noticed as I was running along it (I notice very little when I’m in pain) has witnessed thousands of years of human life from First Nations like the Mi’kmaw through Acadians and all the rest. All I saw was the asphalt and the back of the singlet of the guy in front. Sad.

Oh yeah, and I lost the special shirt.