The Finisher

11

Murat, being so large and seriously undernourished, might have had more need of food than Spiro. On the day of the race, he set off for the recreation ground. Those goody bags had preyed on his mind. He offered to bring one back for Spiro.

Spiro told him not to bother and gave the impression he would have nothing to do with the race. But he’d secretly gone to the trouble of getting a free newspaper with a map of the course, which he’d torn out and put in his pocket. After his foolhardy companion had departed, he planned to visit the drink station along the route. There, he’d pick up some bottled water just to demonstrate to Murat that there were safe ways of doing things.

He needed to borrow a bike again and this time he didn’t have to use the ballpoint-pen trick. As if it was fated, some trusting person — probably one of the runners caught up in the bonhomie of the day — had left a shining blue roadster unlocked in a stack of bikes to the left of the station entrance. Spiro, an avowed atheist, turned his face to the sky, crossed himself and rode off through the tunnel. Like any law-abiding Bathonian, he dismounted and walked the bike over the footbridge they had used before.

The map unfortunately didn’t show contours and he wasn’t pleased to find, once he was back in the saddle, that the direct route was by way of a road called Widcombe Hill. The climb was so stiff that he had to get off the bike and walk. He watched a few serious cyclists in helmets and skinsuits battling with the gradient and knew it was not for him. Even when he’d walked for ten minutes and the slope eased enough for him to use the bike again, grateful for the gears, there was plenty of hill remaining. This was strange because he was supposed to be on his way to a drinks station beside a canal, which to his logical thinking ought to be on even ground.

Not wanting to go back and look for an easier route, he pressed on until the road levelled out and took him past a university campus. The board beside the road told him he was on Claverton Down. The English language was hard to fathom. He thought he’d learned the meaning of the word “down” but in Albanian it would definitely be “up.”

In a few minutes he started descending and was rewarded for all the thigh-straining as the bike picked up speed down a hill called Brassknocker. He had to go into bottom gear and use the brakes to keep control. But the view of the valley ahead when he descended the last section told him he’d arrived. He could see a fine old limestone structure with three arches carrying a canal over a river, so this had to be Dundas Aqueduct as marked on the map. People were standing looking down from the balustrade to where the runners would pass under the arches. Many more spectators had lined the sides of the canal. The drinks station was in a visitors’ car park stretching between the aqueduct and the spur of the disused Somerset Coal Canal.

Spiro dismounted to cross a main road and wheeled the bike into the area where hundreds of bottles were already set out on trestle tables and thousands more in packs formed walls behind. He parked against a tree where he could keep an eye on the bike (you can’t trust anyone) and watched what was happening. The race should have started, but apparently no runners had come through yet. Some volunteers were picking up red sleeveless jackets from a stack behind the tables and putting them on, so Spiro did the same and instantly became a drinks marshal, or whatever they called themselves. Simple as that.

He could have picked up a couple of bottles and left, but having come this far he had an interest in seeing the runners come through.

Cheers and clapping greeted the leaders when they showed, a group of three men of colour who already had a fifty-metre lead over the rest. Taking his cue from the other volunteers, Spiro held out a bottle for one of them to grab, but none of the trio took one. Only four miles into the race, top athletes would be used to going farther without drinking.

When the others started coming through, the take-up was more encouraging. Some took a few gulps and slung the bottles aside and others splashed the water over their heads and shoulders to cool down. These were still the elite runners racing it out rather than the vast majority who would be satisfied to finish at all.

Soon enough the charity people in their shirts of many colours arrived and the demand was more than gratifying. All Spiro and the other volunteers could do was push rows of bottles across the tables for hundreds of hands to grab. He enjoyed being a giver rather than a taker for a change. For ten to fifteen minutes the demands of the job couldn’t have been greater and for a while afterwards there was no let-up. Luckily, everyone seemed to be in a good mood, pleased to have reached this point and united in their wish to keep going to the finish. The inevitable pushing, bumping and splashing prompted only apologies and smiles. Mass participation was bringing out the best in everyone.

As more passed by, the occasional runner would find time to make a joke or say a few words to the marshals. Mostly Spiro got the gist of what was said and responded in English with, “You’re welcome,” mimicking the others. He was still busy, but the flow eased enough for him to marvel at the spectacle, the unbroken multicoloured ribbon of jogging figures spread along the towpath as far as he could see.

Then, without warning, the joy went out of it. For about the twentieth time, Spiro turned to collect three more of the packs of twenty-four, move them to the table and rip off the plastic holding them together. He reached for a stray that was rolling off the table, caught it neatly, handed it to the waiting runner and his blood ran cold.

He’d locked eyes with the one man he was here to avoid.

The Finisher.

Maeve’s half marathon was unlike anything she’d imagined in her training run daydreams. The real thing was noisier, friendlier, more inspiring and more emotional. The temptation in this early part of the race was to get excited and go too fast, particularly with so many people packing the sides of the course yelling encouragement and reaching out to the runners to catch high fives. Most of them were from Longford Road Primary, going by the repeated shouts of, “Go, Miss Kelly,” which was lovely and embarrassing at the same time because everyone else in the race was plain Tom, Dick or Harriet and didn’t get the same support. Amused looks were exchanged by other runners when she waved back like the Queen, but what else could she do? She was Miss Kelly to the parents as well as her class and it was lovely that so many had come to cheer her on.

She kept reminding herself that the hard part was ahead and she needed to save some energy for later. Be responsible, Miss Kelly. You’re not doing this for yourself. Thousands of heart patients are relying on you to get round. You’re lucky enough to have a good ticker, unlike them. The final sum in sponsorship topped two grand, so you’d better not mess up like you did with the Toby jug. Everyone, the kids, parents, teachers, neighbours, family, friends, will want to know if you finished the race and you mustn’t let them down. Aunt Jayne, Mr. Seagrove, Mrs. Haliburton, Trevor, Olga, Mother. You’ll face them all when this is over and you must be able to say, “Yes, I did it.”

The weight of so much expectation almost brought her to her knees. She was still the wrong shape for running, in spite of all the training. It helped that many of the others she’d joined in the first-timers’ pen were similarly handicapped and more so. Thank God she hadn’t committed to running the thing in a gorilla suit or with a polyester Royal Crescent draped around her shoulders. She’d done everything humanly possible: got the kit, done the mileage, eaten the carbohydrates and smeared Vaseline over every bit of her body capable of chafing. She’d listened to Trevor, her distance-running guru, and taken his advice.

Everything humanly possible? Well, almost.

When lecturing her on the importance of the last three weeks before the race, Trevor had talked about tapering, which she took to mean slimming.

“For pity’s sake, Trev,” she’d told him. “I’m happy with the way I am now. I’ve lost almost twenty pounds.”

He’d shaken his head. “That isn’t tapering. You’re on a countdown now. You don’t want to be tired on the day. You ease up gradually on the workload, reduce the mileage, possibly do some fitness walks instead of runs. You want to be fresh and full of energy when you get to the start line. I’ve written down some guidelines for you. Then your nutrition needs adjusting. Keep up the proteins for the time being, but two or three days before the race you must carb-load. Bread, pasta, rice in bulk, to be stored as glycogen in your muscles and liver.”

“Trevor, I just want to get to the end of the race. I’m not aiming to win it.”

He didn’t seem to have heard. “Avoid caffeine and alcohol. Then you’ll feel more relaxed and sleep better. You’re sure to be nervous, but coffee and cocktails aren’t the answer. Herbal tea is good.”

On the day before the race she’d touched base with a guy who knew about running from personal experience. In a small bar on Wellsway, they’d discussed her race strategy and he’d talked a lot more common sense than Trevor and with humour. Alcohol? He recommended it. Between them they’d got through a bottle of the house red and Maeve laughed at his stories of athletes famous and infamous. When he suggested they capped a fun-filled session with some action of their own in a room upstairs, she was surprised, flattered and didn’t object. The sex wasn’t the greatest — passionate while it lasted, fast and furious, meriting a six or seven at most, but better than herbal tea. Trevor’s list of things to avoid hadn’t included a shag. He just hadn’t thought of it, wrongly supposing she was as single-minded as he was.

After Sydney Gardens, excited onlookers lined the road all the way to the humpback bridge at Bathampton. There the support thinned and Maeve was thankful for a quiet stretch southwards along the canal towpath — quiet, except that she was doing it with five thousand others, most, it seemed, ready to chat along the lines of, “Your first time? Mine, too. And the last. My feet are killing me already.”

They progressed through the spectacular Limpley Stoke valley, but she wasn’t in this to admire scenery. She’d needed more elbow room and was getting it now. The conversation dwindled and was replaced by the muffled drumming of footfalls.

A cyclist came by, steadily overtaking runners. “Have a heart, mate, and give me a lift,” someone shouted, but there was no comeback from the rider, intent on getting through on the outside without hitting anyone. Presumably he was someone’s trainer. All the elite runners had trainers and called them coaches. He’d have some catching up to do if he wanted to get through to the leaders. Maeve had a mental map of the route and was looking forward to slaking her thirst at the Dundas Aqueduct.

“Take water at every opportunity,” Trevor had advised. “Dehydration is your biggest enemy.”

She wasn’t worried that Trevor hadn’t been much in evidence today. He must have felt no more needed to be said. She’d seen him from a distance with his bike in the runners’ village before the start and for once he’d been looking the other way. Even in the Longford Road staffroom he had this habit of gazing at her in the way a racehorse trainer studies a filly entered for the Derby, assessing her haunches for excess fat — of which there was still too much — and planning how to get her race-ready. He would never say she was flabby or overeating. Instead he’d tell her, as he had a week ago, that she might care to go to the swimming pool and practise walking in water.

Isn’t that what they do with horses? She hadn’t taken up the suggestion. She had the feeling Trevor would insist on watching, getting an eyeful of her less-than-svelte figure.

She was gasping for a drink of water. Overindulgence in cheap Merlot and sex the day before? No way, she told herself. I can cope with alcohol. The running is making me thirsty. All I need is to recharge. Happily, plenty of hydration was on offer when she jogged into the aqueduct car park. Red-jacketed marshals at tables were making sure everyone could grab a bottle.

“Can I?” she asked the guy when she reached for a spare one. He was trying to manage two tables with armfuls of packs.

“Help yourself. I don’t think I’m winning here. There was someone next to me until a few minutes ago. He vanished just when it was getting really busy.”

She moved on herself, making way for other thirsty people. She noticed some queueing to use a portaloo, jogging on the spot, either to keep the muscles supple or from pressure on the bladder. She wondered if the missing marshal was inside. It wasn’t only the runners who sometimes needed a leak. Personally, she was blessed with excellent plumbing aided by the drying effect of that wine.

She guzzled most of one bottle, rejoined the race and splashed the last part over her head. Personal grooming be damned.

The race left the towpath and followed the track bed of a former railway, now a leafy lane leading eventually to the village of Monkton Combe. Maeve knew from her training runs what to expect — the nearest thing to a theme park, starting with mouldering evidence of an industrial past, the source of Bath’s wealth, remnants of railways, dried-up coal canals, blocks of Bath stone and a mill that over the years had processed fuller’s earth and flour and also served as a yard for sawing stone. All this was climaxed by the tunnel of death, the mile-long excavation underneath Combe Down. On a November day in 1929, locomotive 89, a heavily overloaded steam engine hauling thirty ten-ton wagons of coal, had been straining to make the 1:100 rise through the dark, unventilated tunnel. So slow was progress that the driver and his fireman were overcome by carbon monoxide fumes emitted from their own funnel. They collapsed in the cab. Driverless, still at a crawl but fatally out of control, the train chugged into daylight and on through another tunnel, the Devonshire, before picking up terrifying speed down the hillside, at least sixty miles an hour before it reached a set of points in the goods yard at Bath station and was derailed and overturned, crushing a goods inspector who was waiting to see the train in. The trucks concertinaed. Hot coals were flung into nearby homes. It was remarkable that only three men were killed.

This would be Maeve’s first time through the tunnel of death. In training, she had approached the entrance a number of times and avoided going in. The interior had been spruced up and given some lighting in recent years to become a cycleway, but it still felt spooky to anyone who knew the story. She would make sure she stayed close to the runner ahead.