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Llanelli Half Marathon

Finchley 20

Olympic Orientation In A Nutshell

Llanelli Half Marathon

Always on the lookout for somewhere at little bit different to pull on my trainers, and lured by claims that Llanelli Waterside half is rated as one of the top Half Marathons in the UK by Runners World, Sue Davie and I headed West along the M4 to try it out.

The event is held within Llanelli's Millennium Coastal Park. This race has 5 miles of glorious coastal scenery which the organisers eked out to a half marathon distance. It got a little silly between 3-4 miles when we snaked off the coastal path, into an industrial estate and round a police cone before turning back to fill another 2 miles running up to and around another cone just shy of a roundabout. We then ran back past the start line and along the coast the other way to.....you guessed it.....turn around a cone after 2.5 miles and head to the end.

This resulted in an elongated conga type line of people snaking along the coast which got very messy when we hit bottlenecks. There was the plus side that I got to see Sue a couple of times and it kept me occupied looking out for her. There is talk of the route changing next year to start from the town's Scarlet's rugby team ground. If they can eradicate the toing and froing this may turn out to be a much more interesting course.

Otherwise, the course has great PB potential - it's pancake flat. Indeed a PB is what I managed to run - wiping a whole 7 minutes off my previous PB set on another pancake flat coastal course in Edinburgh back in February 2011.

There were adequate toilet facilities, but sadly no showers. The car park was carnage when we tried to leave - it took us a good half hour to get out which isn't good with tired legs.

The atmosphere was very friendly, however, lots of friends and family out braving the biting wind to support at the start/finish point which was a great place to stand as we passed it three times.

A huge thanks to Tuesday night Metros for the training run earlier that week which gave me the va va voom to run like I'd stolen something. I still can't believe the improvement!

Finchley 20

This was my first bash at Finchley 20. I'd heard all sorts of reports from fellow Metros about the psychological aspect of running 4 x 5 mile laps. My strategy to get round, therefore, was to run with two fellow club runners, treat it as a pre-marathon training run and just enjoy the atmosphere. And I must say, that worked for me - thank you Jane and Andrew.

The marshalling and support on the field was first class. The facilities at Hillingdon AC were superb - indoor toilets, showers and even fragrant candles burning in the changing rooms. You spoil us!

The course had a few challenges - some slight undulations, the worst of which was over the railway bridge at West Ruislip station, and a fair amount of pavement running which made for rather uneven surfaces. At the end, I saw several people nursing cuts from falls on the route.

From miles 1-2 there was a significant amount of running on the road. As the roads hadn't been closed and the early morning drivers didn't seem to be at all sympathetic to 500 distance runners, it seemed at times a little dangerous as the cars came very close when they passed others going in the opposite direction - much preferable to mow down a few runners than ding one's wing mirror on another car.

However, the sun shone, the atmosphere was great for a smallish local race and I would seriously consider doing this again next year.

Olympic Orientation In A Nutshell

There were loads of us marching up from the tube station, finding the correct entrance, then adding to the queues to get in. At the door they checked the bar code on our invitation sheet, but not our ID. Naughty. We were given some chocolate from the sponsors (Cadbury), or rather we just took it from a bin, and a large file full of Olympic games info- our Games Maker Workbook.

I didn't expect so much razzmatazz. A booming voice gave us a countdown to the start- "The show will start in two minutes" etc. It actually started a little late, I noticed. The main lights dimmed and a light show of sorts began. Music got louder and more anthemic. "Simply the best" was played, then the voice came on again-"Are You Ready?" This was not a pop concert. The last time I was here I saw Cliff Richard and the Shadows.

The hexagonal stage on the floor of Wembley Arena (I remember when it was called the Empire Pool) was laid out like a TV breakfast show. Pink sofas at one end and a (news) desk at the other. The voice introduced Jonathan Edwards and it was quickly obvious he was the day's host. He introduced Eddy Izzard and we got the only (slightly) irreverent part of the morning. Then we had newsreader Hugh Edwards ( in yellow rimmed glasses!!) whose role was to ask the questions of the great and good of the organisers and sponsors, plus the main man, a casually dressed Seb Coe. No formal titles this morning. There was somebody at the front to the side doing sign language. Later we were encouraged to learn some- the hand positions for letters were in the Workbook.

Fake newsreaders (although their faces looked familiar) played out a pretend Olympic day at the desk, introducing short films of interviews with background staff. It was all very upbeat and designed to make us feel the same. It did make me realise there are loads more roles that have to be filled than I had thought of. People had come from far and wide to be there, I sat next to a lady who had left at three in the morning from Leeds. Who knows how many made it the next day when the snow had come, but they announced we had a 97% attendance.

There was half time entertainment- The Cadbury Crew ( in the Cadbury colours natch). They tried to whoop us up but, with ageing bladders, most people had dashed off to the loo and missed the whole thing. No loss. There were queues for the gents-that's almost unheard of. The crew got volunteers up, gave them wigs and balloon-shaped guitars, and tried a karaoke of "The Final Countdown" using the rest of us for the chorus. I assume the song was deliberately chosen. It didn't really work. I think they got the average age of the audience a bit wrong.

And there, in my opinion, is the nub- us olduns (and the audience were a lot like me) are happy to volunteer because we believe we can make the games great. We believe it could be a fun time. We'll do our very best, we'll tone down our British cynicism for the games, we'll wear the loud coloured military-style uniform (it was modelled by youngsters at one point) if we must, we don't really need this overkill.

The second half was more of the same really. I think the point had been made early on and this was just repetition. But no matter, on to the next phase of being a volunteer.

Steve Paull

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