Dead Runners society race report
Oxford vs Cambridge 2nd-5th's Varsity match, Oxford saturday 29th november
1997.
After all the
excitement of a new marathon pb in Berlin it was back to the mud of the XC
season. I finally achieved one of my goals as a Cambridge runner by getting to
compete against the enemy in the Varsity
match.
Evenin all
Tony here doing some "Big
Science" at his old workplace of Daresbury Laboratory. Yesterday I ran for
Cambridge University against our ancient rivals from "the other place", Oxford
University.
The Oxford-Cambridge "Varsity" matches are amongst the oldest
annual sporting events in the country, when sport started to get organised at a
national level towards the end of the last century in many cases it was Oxbridge
gentlemen who did a lot of the initial organisation. Even today the two most
famous Varsity sporting events, the Rugby Union and the (rowing) Boat race are
televised live on BBC television and national teams from these sports have a
fair number of participants who have been or are at the ancient
universities.
Back in days of old Oxford and Cambridge produced a fair
proportion of the national athletics team and a quite a few olympic gold
medallists such as Harold Abrahams and Chris Brasher. The athletics Varsity
match used to be attended by national selectors such was the standard of the
event. Oxford and Cambridge's finest hour was in May 1954 when Brasher from
Cambridge and Chataway from Oxford paced Oxford's Bannister to the first sub-4
minute mile at the Oxford Iffley Road track.
However, the days have long
since passed since Oxbridge ruled athletics, the standard of athletics in the
rest of the country has increased a lot and nowadays Oxbridge athletes have to
concentrate on their academic work first unlike in days of old. The odd world
class athlete still emerges though, in 1987 Cambridge's Jon Ridgeon was 2nd in
the world champs at 110m hurdles and last year in Atlanta Oxford's Richard
Nerurkar was 5th in
the marathon. This year Oxford's Nnenna Lynch won the
world student games 5000m for the USA. At the top of the Oxbridge running there
are still some pretty good runners including a few junior internationals in the
first teams.
The first team XC Varsity matches are traditionally
held on neutral territory on Wimbledon Common in London and our best 8 men and 6
ladies will take on the old enemy there next saturday. The mere mortals amongst
Oxford and Cambridge runners also get to run in the 2nd-5th Varsity match every
year which alternates between the two ancient universities, this year it was
Oxford's turn to act as host. 8 days ago I ran in the trial race for the Varsity
Match and finished 57th, normally the top 40 men would get picked but this year
it was decided that everyone who ran in the trial and had also competed for the
university earlier this term could run in one of the teams, the 5th team could
be as big as we liked so I was invited to run for Cambridge against Oxford
:-)
It was a long day yesterday, awoke at 7.00am and my first thought was
"why can't it be our turn to host the 2nd-5th match this year?" Shelley drove me
into Cambridge to meet up with the "kiddies" at 8.30am and off we went on the
coach to enemy territory to take on the dark blues (Oxford wear dark blue and we
wear light blue). The latest Cambridge University Hare and Hounds newsletter had
a picture of Darth Vader on the cover and the
caption "prepare to take on the
Dark Side" :-) We arrived at Iffley Road by 11.30am to get changed, a Canadian
runner on our team remarked "so that's the famous track" to me as we walked to
the changing rooms.
Back on the bus and off to Shotover park where we
were to race. This park is on a hill above Oxford, the coach driver only just
got up the hill to the car park. When we arrived it was cold and damp and windy.
We all went to walk the course before the races started and the further I went
round the course the more my heart sank, apart from a 1/2 mile flat start/finish
area it was all hills, up and down and twisty narrow paths, lots of mud
as
well. None of the hills themselves were that bad but there were *lots* of
them, didn't look like my kind of course :-(
My race was on last at
2.30pm, we watched the ladies run in their 2nd-3rd team race and Oxford won both
of them. Honour was restored when our second team won :-) but the third team
lost :-( There were some great finishes in all the races, one Oxford 3rd team
runner fell flat on his face just before the line in a sprint with one of my
Cambridge friends! As the third team were racing I did some stretching then on
with the spikes, about 15 minutes jogging to warm up as the third team runners
were finishing. Off with the rainsuit and on with my light blue vest and it was
time to line up.
As usual everyone charged off at the start and I was
soon at the back with 2 Oxford runners, after about 1/2 mile I passed one of our
runners who had stopped! I thought he had stopped to do up a shoelace but he
didn't finish. Slogged away to the hilly bit and on the first steep descent an
Oxford runner came past, he didn't get too far ahead and I was catching him on
the uphills, then Mr Oxford took a wrong turn and I zoomed ahead and he never
came back :-) Slogged away for the rest of the lap and passed a Cambridge runner
walking *downhill* :-( He had got a "stitch" (do "real" runners get
stitches?) and he didn't finish. The last hill on the lap took a long time to
get up and I was feeling a bit tired, through the car park and into the flat
start/finish area.
I got plenty of encouragement from the Cambridge
runners as I went past the finish and then round again for a slightly shorter
second lap. By now I couldn't see any more runners ahead, I just had to slog it
out all by myself through the hills and the mud and the murk for the honour of
Cambridge. Eventually back to the start/finish straight, I could see an Oxford
runner way ahead but he wasn't catchable, I was able to speed up a bit at the
end on the flat.
Rather tired on finishing, not pleased with my
run, it was never really a race for me. Ended up doing the 5 miles in 39.08,
44/46 in the 4th-5th race, last Cambridge runner to finish. Quickly got my
spikes off and on with my trainers and my rainsuit, we lost both the men's 4th
and 5th team matches :-( That was one of the toughest XC courses I've ever run
on,
Oxford definitely had home team advantage on a course like that, there
aren't many hills like that in the Cambridge flatlands. Still I can say that I
finished and when I'm old(er) and grey(er) I can talk about the day I ran for
Cambridge against Oxford in the Varsity Match and the hills and the mud and the
rain won't feel as if they were that bad after all.
We all got on the
coach for the journey back to the famous Iffley Road track to get changed and
for the presentation. The coach got stuck on the steep road down from the park
as a car was blocking the route, the driver couldn't be found so some of the
Cambridge runners got off the bus and manhandled the car out of the way so we
could get through!
The post-race presentation wasn't much fun as
the enemy had won nearly everything, also every expense had been spared on the
post-race tea. I couldn't hang around for the evening festivities, I got cleaned
up then off to the railway station to get a train heading north to take me back
to Warrington for some experimental time at Daresbury, arrived at the lab at
10.30pm, a *very* long day.
ORN. I did about 7 miles all on the
road this morning (I'd had my fill of off-road the day before, met up with one
of my Spectrum Striders pals on he run so I ran part of the way with him and had
a nice chat as I'd not seen him for a few months.
If you've made it
this far congratulations on making it to the end of a post I hope Dave Couper
would be proud of :-)
bye
tony....
tony bell ageing student
and marathon runner
cambridge university department of
chemistry
amtb2@cus.cam.ac.uk
Tony@shells.demon.co.uk
http://www.shells.demon.co.uk/tonyweb.html
**"Nobody
expects the Spanish Inquisition"**
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