By Matthew Shelley
On racy weekends away my wife often calls me the third lady. Odd, I know, but it’s purely a sporting term. Not “sporting” as in, nudge, nudge, wink, wink – more run, run, limp, limp.
It’s all to do with the long-distance running competitions I enter without a hope of winning. Last Sunday I was among the 109 small, tall, thin, podgy, young, old, Scottish, English, European, Antipodean (and other) entrants who lined the brow of a slight hill outside Craignure for the start of the 23rd annual Mull Half Marathon.
Klaxon and off; hammering back into the village, past the ferry terminal (where many competitors had arrived from Oban that morning) and up another incline to where the island’s double-track road runs out.
A U-turn round a mid-tarmac race marshal and we headed back the way we’d come – past the whitewashed kirk, the inn, the Spar, the cottages and holiday homes and into the countryside – pressing for the distant finish, up the coast in the village of Salen.
Doubling back so early in the race initially seemed peculiar, but it was great. It gave a chance to size up the opposition just as they were starting to spread out.
Some were going like whippets on roller skates, others seemed fated to a slow slog past each mile marker. I revelled in the chance to glimpse the faces rather than the heels of the elite who would snaffle the cups and medals.
I was particularly keen to count leading the women. Three of them.
One was young, tall and skinny, with a loose-limbed grace which suggested that she would soon be pulling ahead of me not just by seconds but by big fat minutes.
The next also looked frighteningly quick. Then there was the third – and, if my wife’s usual calculation was right, I was looking at someone close to my own speed.
In the year-and-a-half since I started to drag my former 60-fags-a-day lungs through races, it has become lore that she can judge pretty well when I will appear.
It goes like this. The first few blokes appear – am I there? Lordy, no!
The first woman thunders across the line, then the second. Still a wait.
The issue is whether I will trail or trounce the next female home and earn a pat on the pack and a “Well done, you’re the third lady”. Thanks!
What gave rise to this was that when I first took up racing I was keen to learn from others. Several times I found myself side-by-side with highly experienced bronze-winning women. They tended to be happy to share tactical tips and advice with a clueless novice.
Indeed, these mid-race chats with athletes of a higher calibre than I will ever be are the only coaching sessions I’ve ever had.
Mull was good to me. Gusting headwinds and some drenching rain made the conditions less benign than they could have been, but it was a joy. The terrain was a mix of level ground, slight ups and some long descents – where gravity’s welcome pull exhilarates, making you feel like an express train.
Then, whenever my knackered knee or overstretched hamstring started complaining, there were stunning seascapes to wash away the discomfort.
After seven or eight miles there was the usual slight reshuffling of positions. A few overambitious folk flagged, while some others (typically older males with a secret fifth gear) emerged from the middle and cruised towards the front.
By the time Salen came into view I was feeling the strain from desperately trying to capture ground from a bloke who had overtaken me a couple of miles earlier. I was confounded by his near-ghostly quality. Every time I surged, he drifted off a little further, with no obvious effort. Yet the chase seemed to help us both, pushing me to a personal best of one hour 32 minutes 44 seconds.
My rival’s first act after crossing the line was to turn and shake my hand. We stood for a few moments and laughed.
I then found my wife and dogs – and learned that I was indeed the third lady and had been surprisingly close to the number two.
That has fired up my ambition. I’ll never stand on the podium to receive a gold, silver or even bronze. But, if I train really, really hard, I can go back in 2012 with the dream of becoming the Second Lady of Mull.
– For further details see www.mullrunners.com
– Photography courtesy of Ewan Baxter Photography.
Donate to us: support independent, intelligent, in-depth Scottish journalism from just 3p a day
Related posts: