It’s been some seventeen summers since I last dragged my saggy arse around the edges of Brockwell Park. My back of a fag packet calculations suggest that 1997 was the year of the Brixton Hill exodus to Sunny Stockwell.
I haven’t looked back since.
Sorta…
And so on Saturday morning I returned to the scene of my first Transpontine running route. Twice around the Beauty of Brockwell, a weekly Tesco shop down at Acre Lane and then back at base in time for Football Focus.
At least that was the routine back in the day.
The 2014 Brockwell running experience is slightly different. It is the warm-up (ha!) ahead of the warm down swim at the lovely lido. A mad March dip in the waters of Lake Brockwell would have got you sectioned some seventeen summers ago.
The Brockwell Park Run was the occasion on Saturday morning. I have witnessed the army of Bright Young Things gathering around the lido entrance shortly before 9am each Saturday. It is much to my disappointment that they don’t join the rest of the icicles for a sharp hangover cure in an 8 degrees centigrade art deco pool.
Instead the hoards run round and round and round Brockwell Park.
And so did I on Saturday morning.
The Park Runs are something of a runaway (aha!) success story around inner city green spaces. Like most things, the modern interweb is partly responsible.
You register online, and then check in on the morning with your barcode. Times and stats are posted online each week. It’s a competitive event that puts you in friendly competition with yourself.
Add in a little personal Strava detail and all of a sudden your leisurely park run gets submersed in data.
It’s all about the running, isn’t it?
Possibly.
I do enjoy the freedom to lose myself whilst out plodding the mean streets of Clap’ham. But equally I enjoy the challenge of looking back over my routes, segments and timings.
The Brockwell Park Run should be perfect for me.
And so on Saturday morning I joined @iciclepete for the warm up ahead of the warm down watery experience. Strava wasn’t on the radar back in the summer of 1997 when I last did the Brockwell thing. Which is a shame as the strapping athlete of seventeen summers ago has gone a bit to seed of late.
I kept running semi-competitively until around 2006. A knackered knee put an end to my eating up of the SW8 pavements. I turned to swimming and cycling instead.
Weirdly it was the onset of arthritis in my non-knackered knee in 2012 that led me back to running. My physiotherapist encouraged a programme of road running, managed with endless nightly stretches.
If I’m not wearing the running shoes now then I’m standing on one leg, looking not unlike some of the feathery wildlife that you see around the edges of Brockwell. I have stretched myself back into business and back into the Brockwell habit.
I haven’t got a chuffers what sort of time I use to clock back in my first Brixton incarnation days. The timing was all counting down to Tesco and then Football Focus.
I was fairly pleased with the 23:10 first reading on Saturday morning. It’s all downhill from here.
Nope - IT REALLY IS ALL DOWNHILL from here.
I’m remembering the topography of Brockwell and where it’s best to open up your legs and let the terrain carry you.
I’m remembering that a sprint finish ‘aint great, unless you want to chunder over the finishing tape.
Apologies, Madam.
My induction into the army of the Bright Young Things of Brockwell was enjoyable, if a little heavy on all the whooping and high fives come the end.
But that was only half the race won. The BEAUTIFUL blue waters of Lake Brockwell were the reward for dragging my saggy arse around Brockwell Park once again.
Postscript:
Back at base and a further analysis of the results reveal that I ran 23:10. @iciclepete clocked in with an impressive 19 minute run.
I was 9th overall (in my 40-44 vets category…) The wider picture shows that I was 90th out of 238 runners.
I set, um, a Personal Best.