It having been nearly 3 weeks since Le Mans, I think it's time for a brief update on events since and plans.
Having rather foolishly entered the Edinburgh leg of the Men's Health Survival of the Fittest some months ago, vaguely aware that it was only 2 weeks after Le Mans, I was on a bit of a race against time to see if the Tonsillitis would ease and I'd be fit enough to compete. Although the throat and slight lingering fever hung around, by the middle of last week I was feeling OK, and managed a light jog on Thursday with no adverse side-effects - and therefore passed myself "fit" for the race on Sunday.
The Survival of the Fittest is loosely described as an Urban Challenge - 10k or so of pounding round city streets with various obstacles or challenges thrown in for good measure. And, as it's Edinburgh, a special extra treat of hills. Lots of bloody hills. The event starts with a belt down the Royal Mile (with walls of hay bales to clamber over) before heading down some of the narrow closes and under Waverley Station before the first real challenge - the narrow but brutally steep staircase of Jacob's Ladder, before continuing to climb to the top of Calton Hill, from where there are superb panoramic views. Apparently. Difficult to see when you're bent double owing to being completely out of breath. And also broken Range Rovers to clamber through followed by a full on army assault course.
Having been appropriately beasted, we then descend Calton Hill by means of more narrow tracks and staircases, passing the Parliament and Dynamic Earth before the relentless drag up through the woods alongside Arthur's Seat to the next challenge - The Water Slide. Worryingly the guys at the top were discussing whether, through extreme wetting of the slide, they could get their victims into the trees 30m away from the end of the slide. I only managed a 15m slither across the soaked muddy ground, although as wedgies go it wasn't a particularly comfortable experience.
From there the route went through the tunnel of the old Innocent Railway before winding its way down onto Cowgate for the next fun. A slightly mad maze through road work accessories before a 5 storey climb up through a disused warehouse. On exiting this, we climbed (again) back up to the Royal Mile for a further bouncy castle challenge before dropping steeply back to Cowgate for the loop round the Grassmarket (with some light Parkour thrown in) and round the back of the Castle and into Princes Street Gardens for the last few obstacles - crawling through tunnels and one last 3m high wall to be navigated (helped over). As I'd expected a time of around 70 minutes in my "take it very easy" mindset, I was quite happy with 63. Sub-60 next year, though... I was nice to do an event that, although tough, is mainly for fun and has a great camaraderie amongst the participants.
In other news, I didn't make the ballot for next year's Virgin London Marathon. Not really that surprised, but slightly disappointed all the same. Came back home from Le Mans to find the "commiserations" magazine they send out, and was rather taken aback that more than half of it was filled with adverts from charities encouraging you to apply for a guaranteed place with them. Then the first 2 emails from the organisers were along the same line - if you're disappointed, here's a huge list of charities who DO have places. This was starting to irk me a bit - surely, despite all the excellent fundraising that goes on, this is a running event first and foremost? Well, perhaps not, actually.
Having got in through the ballot (and decided to raise funds for Marie Curie) last year, the whole "guaranteed places for charities" thing had kind of passed me by, but I did vaguely recall some controversy about it just before the race. Decided to do a bit of reading up, and it seems that of the 36000 places in the race, 15000 are guaranteed to charities through various bond schemes. Or, put another way, after sponsors and celebrity places, little more than half of the places are available for general entry. Which is why it's so damn hard to get in through the ballot.
Apparently charities pay £300 for a guaranteed place, with many holding between 200 and 500 places and some having in excess of 700! Ballot runners pay about £40, so it clearly suits the organisers to have more revenue-generating charity places than ballot entries. Apparently the charities are also charged for advertising in the official publications and website too. The charities then need to recoup that outlay, so look to people to raise a minimum funding level - usually of at least £2000. This seems to be playing into people's desperation to run the event - they're effectively guaranteeing to pay £2000+ and assuming they'll be able to recoup some or all of it through sponsorship.
Now, I think this is wrong. I'd like to see a lot more places available in the ballot. People who get in through the ballot will almost certainly still choose to run for a charity (it IS an important part of the event), and I don't think the charities would lose out - people would still try just as hard to raise funds and they wouldn't have the £300 a head to recoup. In fact, some smaller charities without guaranteed places might benefit as there would be a higher likelihood of people choosing them rather than the "official" charities with the guaranteed places and official advertising. Above all, it should be an open and transparent entry process with as many places as possible filled through the public ballot.
So I came to a conclusion. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. No more London applications for me.
There are hundreds of marathons out there that people who really want to do one can enter (something else the "commiserations" magazine is rather silent on, with its focus on pushing you to the charity places!), in so many different and interesting places.
So I'll still be doing a spring marathon next year. Sunday May 22nd will see me on the start line of the Edinburgh Marathon. As far as Autumn goes, I think I have some unfinished business in the Le Mans area, so if there's a second running, I'll be there to finish what I started.
In the meantime, I'll just be keeping the legs ticking over with some light to moderate running and maybe looking for a few winter events for some variety.
