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Stroud Beer Race - Edward Collier - May 2010

In any running club, from Tipton Harriers to Almost Athletes, the membership consist of a continuum that runs (geddit?) from the Very-Serious-And-Likely-To-Win-Or-Place-At-Least to the Just-Doing-It-For-Fun-And-Don't-Like-Racing-Anyway. We all fit on that line somewhere. Me? I'm a Moderately-Serious-And-Highly-Unlikely-Ever-To-Win-Again-Though-I-Might-Pick-Up-The-Odd-Vet-Prize-On-A-Good-Day sort of chap. What this boils down to is that I train, on average, six days out of seven, try to average between 40 and 50 miles a week and race between ten and twenty times a year. I've had my moments - more as a pot-hunter than a serious athlete; for me there's little to compare with winning a race, even if on the few occasions I did the competition was, shall we say, on the dull side of lacklustre.

Anyway. It was with very little anticipation of a good day's (or evening's) running that I turned up at the windswept top of Minchinhampton Common for the Stroud 7.2 mile Beer Race. I've done this race more than ten times over the years and it doesn't get any easier. Starting more or less at the top, at the Old Lodge pub (very recherché these days - all leather sofas and gastro-pub prices) the race follows a widdershins lap past The Amberley (steep downhill) then a long, long uphill to Beaudesert School, then a long, long uphill back to the pub. Or rather past the end of the driveway to the pub. Three times. Laps, in other words, a word which is almost as much anathema to me as mud.

I got there early, thanks to a time estimate from Via Michelin that clearly believed I was either cycling or well into my dotage. Having registered and determined that it was rather cold in the wind, I decided to do a lap as a warm-up, during which my mood went from mildly optimistic to downright depressed. If only I could remember how to do this running lark? I know you put your right foot in front of your left, but then what? It was all a mystery. I put it down to a very poor run of sleep, and rather too generous a share of a bottle of wine the night before. And a chocolate binge at about four o'clock.

Back at the start I saw a few familiar faces, gathered together like a convention of people who think purple and yellow is a fine colour-way. Someone mentioned that they were engaged in the time-honoured task of looking for people who looked likely to be slower than them - I suggested that people who had pinned their numbers onto their backs were liable to be, at best, running ingénues, and at worst somewhere shy of a clue. Duncan Mounsor and I got our excuses in early, reminding each other that it was the Tewkesbury Half on Sunday, with the need to keep our powder dry for that. "I'm just treating it like a Wednesday evening club run", he said. I remember the last time I saw Duncan at a Wednesday evening club run, going down the Lansdown Road like Haile Gebreselassie. Or when he led the fast moderates from Morrison's as if the last train were about to leave with his luggage and he was five miles away.

The klaxon went and, with legs that I was convinced were made of imperfectly vulcanised rubber and a set of lungs that an emphysemic 40-a-day smoker would have been proud of, I set off in hot pursuit of the leaders. The race starts outside the pub, at the end of a long drive. Once on the road the runners turn left, and start a short climb before the hard left turn to Amberley. In previous years this first few minutes has been quite dispiriting, as I, running in the pack, could quite clearly see the leaders miles off with what seemed to be dozens of people in front of me. But this time was different - worryingly different. I was hanging on - and I mean hanging on - to the back of the leading pack, and by the first mile marker I was running in sixth place. Two miles in under 12m 15s. This couldn't end well. Thing was - I felt great, like I used to back when Thatcher was in charge (I didn't feel great because of Thatcher, but because I was twenty years younger) - and on the second lap, where in previous years I've started to go backwards, I felt I was pressing on and caught the fifth placed runner.

Things, of course, did go wrong. Stuff, or something beginning with "s", happens. On the third lap I got a stitch. A stitch! A stitch begins with "s". I haven't had a stitch since cross--country at school, yet despite my best efforts it just wouldn't go away. As I struggled to breathe properly I was overtaken and slipped to eighth and then ninth as someone passed me ten metres before the finish line. Duncan Mounsor told me later that he had got a stitch too, and that he hadn't had one since school either. Apparently it's the steep descents wot does it.

My parade remained dry only until I got home and looked up last year's results, to find that I'd run more or less exactly the same time. Ok, another year older and no slower is good - but I was convinced I'd made a big stride forward in that elusive search for race fitness that has eluded me for at least five years. Now I had to wonder if I'd left my mojo on the hills above Nailsworth, when I had a much more important fixture in Tewkesbury in a few days' time. The old rule of thumb - that it takes a day per mile to recover from a race - meant that I'd be ready for the Tewkesbury Half Marathon on .... the Wednesday following. Does anyone have Mike Gratton's number - I'm sure I can get him to swing a postponement.

Race Report by Karen Galpin and Results

Ed Collier led his team mates home in 48.18, securing 9th position overall in the race, with Duncan Mounsor chasing his heels and finishing in 52.17, some 2 minutes ahead of Eddie Munro.

Ed Collier 48.18 (9th overall); Duncan Mounsor 52.17; Eddie Munro 54.30; Ed Cane 57.19; Rob Hume 59.34; Nicki Perrott 60.22; Phil Holding 61.22; Alison Hume 62.47