Inaugural Training with a Nottingham Running Club
Last week I finally attended my first track and field training session in Britain. In truth, I had not exactly been bursting with anticipation before the event, since after all I thought I knew what to expect. The experience of being a contemporary metic (ancient Greek for ‘non-citizen alien resident’) had become familiar to me after many years in Sweden, and from what I had seen so far the attitude of ‘protective self-enclosure’ – to borrow an expression from Slavoj Žižek –was certainly on the rise in England as well. In fact, wherever you happen to be in Europe at this moment in history – if you are not “born of the soil”, and more than just a tourist – it seems you have to have some “good reason” for being where you are (even if you happen to be a European inside the European Union). Of course, I thought I had such a reason, but would the local runners agree? As it turned out, they really did not.
The training I attended was a Tuesday night interval running session set on the track. I arrived at the training facilities a few minutes late, and immediately spotted a group consisting of roughly ten sporty-looking people of varying ages conversing with each other next to the course. However, the second the club members became aware of my approaching figure – I wore my Polish-styled leather jacket and my Finnish cycling trousers – they instantly fell in deep silence.
Not allowing myself to be knocked down by the initial blackout, however, I decided to switch on my charm. I thus introduced myself with a merry smile and a brisk ‘hi’, just to witness how most of the club members remained with their gaze firmly fixed to the ground. This of course could still be interpreted as a sign of simple shyness. But when in the next instance a few of the male runners found it necessary to move their bags as far away from mine as the space around the track permitted, I could not help but to become somewhat discouraged. All the same, I quickly regathered my courage and introduced myself to the coach, who – albeit evidently finding my European accent immensely difficult to comprehend – seemed to be considerably more welcoming than the rest of the group. Or perhaps he was just able to recognize a talent?
However that may be, the warm-up soon commenced. It was realized in form of a couple of easy laps of jogging around the track intermixed with running-technique-enhancing exercises and rounded up with a few pulse-raising sprints. During the warm-up I did my uttermost to maintain a conversation with one of the older female runners, but she answered my questions in such a reluctant manner that I soon had to forgo my attempt. Consequently, I was quite relieved when the coach thought the time had come for the actual training to begin.
The troop then gathered at one end of the 400 meters track and as the coach gave his signal, we began the running. The whole training was going to consist of five times four minutes intervals, and my initial intention had been to keep a steady 5k pace throughout the session. But as two of the younger males rapidly moved in front of the pack, I decided to proceed behind them and let them decide the pace instead. One of the two faster runners, however, soon showed himself to be the strongest athlete in the group – according to my judgment a 32/33 minutes 10k runner – and during the first four intervals I decided not to try to maintain his tempo. (In contrast, the other fast starter began each interval trying to keep the front-runner’s pace, but also failed to do so each time). My own speed during the first four intervals was such that I made it more or less exactly three times around the 400 meters track, ending up some 20-30 meters behind the male runner in front. This would be tantamount to a 16.30/17.00 minutes 5k pace. However, I had hardly been going at full speed.
The front-runner was a tall 27/28 year old at the peak of his athletic abilities. I myself was approaching 35 – yet I knew that I was the one of us who had the higher VO2 max. However, I did not try to take the front during the session’s last interval either. Instead, I remained in the slipstream of the fastest runner until the last hundred meters, after which I allowed him to pull away from me. Indeed, I still live in the hope of making some friends in this country.
In my next blog post I will return to the reviewing of books.