An adventure to Oxford! To run a marathon on the Iffley Road Athletics Track, where the legendary Sir Roger Bannister was the first person to run a sub 4 minute mile, on the 6th May 1954 (where he ran 3:59:40 minutes). It was such a privilege to run there, on the same track where history was made, following (albeit, at a slightly less record breaking pace) in the great man's footsteps. I was very excited to go there, and to be learning more about the history of this iconic time in sport!
I went up to Oxford on Friday afternoon with Andrew (on the National Express - £36 for two people, return, and no strikes!!). After a quick explore of the city, we fueled up with pizza at Mario's, and retired to the Travelodge, for an early night.
The weather forecast was "slightly less than ideal", but things didn't look too bad first thing. We walked over to the track, as the gentle rain got heavier. And heavier.
The event was organised by Rasselbock Running, and timed by Matt from Timing Monkey. It was my first event with Rasselbock, and it was well organised, friendly, and a very good atmosphere. It was great to see Richard there (and thank you for the idea in the first place!).
After sheltering out of the rain in the stands, and absorbing some history....
....it was time to brave the track and absorb some rain during the race briefing, and at 9am we were off. At approximately 09:01 the rain began to take itself very seriously, and for the rest of the morning weather was more like Armageddon (aka, Storm Antoni) than August.
This was my third different track to run around. It's funny, really, you'd think all athletics tracks, being as they are to be approved to be exactly the same as each other, would be pretty much the same to run around as the next one. But they have, so far, all felt very unique! Iffley Road has a lot to look at all around; the road above, St John the Evangelist Church ahead as you run down the back straight, tennis courts, several different sports buildings, outdoors gyms/ warm up areas, and all the giant photos and signs of records that have been broken there. Not that you could really see much of this through the torrential rain, which seemed to manage to become at points even more torrential, even though it had been already incessantly torrential for hours.....
Did I mention the weather already?? And that the rain was torrential?
I had my heart set on running under 4 hours, given the history of "4" at this location. I was going well and enjoying it, but mentally when my watch distance and my laps were getting less aligned, and I was getting further behind on my counted laps but my pace was still seeming OK, I got frustrated with it all, and annoyed with myself for not being able to do what I had set out to do. I was disappointed not to run under 4 hours (did 4.01) but sometimes, things just don't work out as you hope them too. Hey ho. It was still good fun!
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