Looking back now, if Kevin Bacon, Julia Roberts and others wanted to know what it was like to have a near death experience, they could have just tried to run a 10k.
You often hear stories of people who've had near death experiences. They mostly seem to report going down a tunnel towards a bright light, and at the end there's a beautiful garden full of their loved ones. And maybe their pets.
The people who come back usually say that they really wanted to stay with the people they've lost, where it's sunny and comfortable. But for some reason it wasn't their time yet. They got resuscitated and sent back to the world as we know it.
On Saturday, I ran the Wistow 10k. Wistow, near Selby. They told us at the start how close the event was to being called off, due to heavy rain. Some of the route was underwater, and the field where you normally park would have turned into a mudbath with cars on it, so we ended up parking on a farm.
I set off a bit steadier than I did at last week's Abbey Dash. I did that on purpose, thinking that I might be able to keep something in reserve for the end. But it didn't work out that way. Just to keep a roughly 5 minutes per kilometre pace knackered me out. My sprint finish never materialised. At 3k I remembered the fear of last week, of not being able to keep going and how it seems easier to give in. And I thought "Why am I doing this to myself again?
I missed my sub 50-target by 10 seconds. If it hadn't been for the 50 minute pacer, who I stuck with from 3k in, and who wouldn't let me go, I probably would have missed it by more. Where did I lose those seconds? Did I start too slow, was it the puddles, did I spend too much time waving, did my flat palm doing the wave cause wind resistance, was it because I didn't finish my pasta the night before?
The Wistow 10k is a much smaller scale event than the Abbey Dash. With less people lining the route. Morag was there though, cheering and ringing a bell. A stranger shouted to me at one point 'Keep going'. I remember thinking in the past that this is a nonsensical thing to shout at someone in a race. Who is going to stop? But, on Sunday it made sense, because actually just to keep going, when everything in you for the whole way round, is telling you to stop, is an achievement in itself. It would have been nice to hit my target, but in the end, to keep going was enough.
Every race I run is an intense emotional and personal experience. Not just during but before and after. The nervousness and the wondering how you'll do and the standing around at the start. And when it's finished, processing what you've been through, how you ran and how you felt and could you have done it any better?
At the end of the tunnel on Sunday, the voices calling out to me weren't from the afterlife, or from a past life. They were from my here and now life. The beautiful garden wasn't heaven, it was Wistow.
Once we'd all finished, this was our group photo. I sent my friend Shelagh it on WhatsApp with the caption 'Another one for the family photo album'.
She replied to say "t's better than a family because everyone is wearing matching outfits" She also said that because the clocks had gone back, I didn't need to worry about missing out on my 50 minute target, because in effect I had finished before I set off.
Sometimes people who come close to death, who go down that tunnel towards the light, value their life more afterwards. At the end of a 10k, just being able to stand still and breathe normally again is a wonder. They give you a bottle of water and it's the best water you ever tasted. At Wistow Morag was there with a bag of Celebrations and the mini Mats bars tasted so amazing I had to have 3. And the sun was shining and the colours of people's Vaporflys were the brightest colours I'd ever seen. And, after all the rain, the sky had never looked a more perfect shade of blue.
Kerrie and I bought a coffee from the mobile coffee van and we sat on a wall watching people try their best to smash up their cars reversing badly out of the tiny village hall car park. It was better than a West End show. You can't choreograph better comedy than that.
On the way back from Wistow in the car, Kerrie said all the races you do, you remember them. And not just the race, the day itself. And she's right. The journey there and back, what you had to eat, who was there. The pain ends but the happiness doesn't.
A 10k only lasts around 50 minutes for me, and that's the total amount of pain. Once it's over, it's over. But the happiness, and the pride at completing one never really goes away.
