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SRRC Race Reports
Hotelympia 10K, London, England —Sun., February 17, 2008
by
Alison Gittelman
Running the Hotelympia 10K at the London Docklands provided the backdrop for a fascinating history lesson. The little that I “knew” about the area – former docks built on swampland and depressed East London towns – made me want to learn more.
London’s docks were formerly part of the Port of London, at one time the world's largest port. The three Royal Docks – Royal Albert, Royal Victoria, and King George V, were built between 1855 and 1921 on riverside marshes in East London to provide berths for large vessels that could not be accommodated further upriver. They specialized in the import and unloading of foodstuffs, with rows of giant granaries and refrigerated warehouses sited alongside the quays. The docks' great size and indented shape gave them a collective span of over 12 miles (19.3 km) of quaysides, serving hundreds of cargo and passenger ships at a time.
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| The original Royal Docks . . . |
While they enjoyed their heyday in the 1950s, all of London’s docks suffered a steady decline from the 1960s onwards, mostly as a result of containerization. The last docks closed to commercial traffic in 1981. The same year, the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) was established to secure the regeneration of the area. The former docks have now been redeveloped principally for commercial and residential use, and are now collectively known as London Docklands.
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| Docklands . . . |
At 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, February 17th, I’d been in London for 22 hours. I arrived at Heathrow Airport on Saturday morning and took the Heathrow Express train to Paddington and the Underground (tube) to my friend Kirsty’s flat in Leytonstone, East London. Kirsty and I were roommates at Sheffield University in the early 90’s, and every year or so we get together to reminisce about our college days! I was staying with Kirsty for a long weekend and, since we’re both runners, we decided a 10K race would be fun, in addition to all the other things planned for my jam-packed 50-hour stay. We’d already seen Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum in Speed the Plow at the Old Vic on Saturday night!
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Kirsty with Brittania Village and cranes in background. |
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Kirsty with Millennium Dome and Canary Wharf in background. |
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| Checking out the starting area. |
So, at 8:30 a.m. we were standing in a queue (line) to buy a “Pay and Display” ticket for the car park (parking lot) at the ExCel Conference Centre at the Royal Victoria Docks. Pay and Display is very popular among British car park management companies because you have to overestimate how long you’re going to leave your car and so you always overpay. Anyway, there we were, standing in this long queue at a ticket machine which clearly was causing trouble for everyone. I decided that there had to be another machine somewhere and left Kirsty in the queue while I went looking. Just around a corner I found one where nobody was waiting and so got a ticket and ran back, shouting to Kirsty, “I got the winning ticket!” The people in the queue weren’t amused, and when I mentioned the free machine just around the corner, nobody moved. Finally a woman at the back decided I might not be deranged and went over to the other machine. I haven’t lived in England for 14 years, but do Brits now enjoy queueing? Or have I become horribly impatient while living in the United States?
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| Excel Conference Center |
The ExCel Conference Centre is a massive, shiny, new building right on the quayside. The views of the area’s modernization—Canary Wharf skyscrapers, the Millennium Dome, Brittania Village (yuppie housing)—are abundant. But signs of the area’s past remain in the form of the massive cranes used to load goods on and off ships. These structures line both sides of the quay and are a spectacular site. (Check out the pictures of the cranes both today and in use in the 1950s photos.) They also present quite an obstacle when you’re trying to run past them with a bunch of other people!
The race started at the civilized hour of 9:30am. It was cool – probably in the high 30s – but sunny. We ran around the Royal Victoria Docks for the first couple of kilometers. I was having a hard time avoiding all the obstacles – not only did we have to run around those massive cranes (one of which was conveniently used as a turnaround) but there were also lampposts and poles to avoid. In addition, much of the quayside has cobblestones, which I’m not too fond of.
Before the race Kirsty and I agreed that we were going to take it easy, running at about an 8:00 minute mile pace. I hadn’t slept at all Friday night because I can’t sleep on planes, and jet lag had kept me awake Saturday night. Kirsty hadn’t run a 10K in four years (she’s more of a half-marathon slog through the mud runner) and so didn’t want to go out too fast. Our plan soon fell by the wayside when Kirsty set off like a bat out of hell with me following along. We went through the first mile in 7:27! Kirsty obviously decided that the pace felt good and I figured I could hang on so neither of us slowed down.
Upon leaving the Royal Victoria Docks we ran west towards Canning Town. Despite being a neighbor to many Dockland developments, Canning Town remains in the top 5 per cent most deprived areas in the UK, with local people suffering from poor health, low education, and poverty. Canning Town has a history of deprivation. In 1857, in an extract from “Household Words,” a weekly journal, Charles Dickens (yes, that Charles Dickens!) wrote:
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| A crane dwarfs the starting line . . . |
“Canning Town is the child of the Victoria Docks. The condition of this place and of its neighbour [Hallsville] prevents the steadier class of mechanics from residing in it. Many select such a dwelling-place because they are already debased below the point of enmity to filth; poorer labourers live there, because they cannot afford to go further, and there become debased. The Dock Company is surely, to a very great extent, answerable for the condition of the town they are creating…It is a district, at such times, most safely to be explored on stilts. The clergyman of the parish says, that he once lost his shoes in the mud while visiting Hallsville, and did not know that they were gone till some time afterwards; so thickly were his feet encased in knobs of mud…The whole of the ground on which Hallsville and Canning Town are built is seven feet below high-water mark. The houses are built in rows…with their backs to a stagnant ditch. We turn aside to see the ditch, and find that it is a cesspool, so charged with corruption, that not a trace of vegetable matter grows on its surface - bubbling and seething with the constant rise of the foul products of decomposition that the pool pours up into the air. The filth of each house passes through a short pipe straight into this ditch, and stays there.”
When the LDCC’s boundaries were drawn in 1981, Canning Town was considered to be a fully developed and well established residential area that did not need the special attention and funding of the LDCC. It appears to me that the problems Canning Town experiences today are due at least in some part to this exclusion. Today, Canning Town is finally getting the attention it so desperately needs and is undergoing a £1.7 billion regeneration project, supercharged by development for the 2012 Olympics, for which many of the venues will be located in this area.
I wanted to get a good look at Canning Town but it was hard to pay much attention to my surroundings because I had to watch that I didn’t bump into all the obstacles. After running up and down an overpass (the only part of the course with cones separating us from the constant stream of London traffic!), we had to make a hairpin turn which at the same time involved stepping down about a foot and a half onto a road below the overpass! We then ran up a pea stone slope and crossed a pile of sludge (one of Dickens’ cesspools?!) via a slippery, single file bridge. I had acquired a pea stone under my shoe and could feel my foot sliding around. Fortunately it fell out before we had to run up a flight of steps!
After running along the waterfront we crossed a dual carriageway (divided highway) at two pedestrian crossings. At the second crossing a woman carrying a massive bouquet of flowers gave a bemused look at the stream of runners. After crossing the road we ran on the pavement (sidewalk) heading to Canary Wharf. The obstacle course reached a new level as we had to dodge bus shelters and pedestrians and, then, construction, which forced us onto a temporary walkway in the middle of the road with 3ft high walls on either side. I’d momentarily lost Kirsty because I couldn’t get past three guys in front of me. When we crossed the road to get to the temporary walkway I passed two of them, and was about to pass the third when he ran into the right side of the wall and bounced off it! Once I determined he was ok (i.e., alive), I passed him and caught up with Kirsty just as she was giving directions to one of the front runners who had completed the circuit through Canary Wharf and was heading back. Apparently the marshalls were clueless as to which way he should go!
A business and shopping development on the Isle of Dogs at the old West India Docks, Canary Wharf gets its name from the area’s sea trade with Spain’s Canary Islands, whose name in turn comes from the dogs (Latin canis) that the Spaniards found on the islands. Its dominant skyline contains the UK’s three tallest buildings. As a result of the many tall buildings in a very small area, it is very cold and shady and full of wind tunnels. I find it rather desolate and characterless; the least interesting part of the course.
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| Canary Wharf |
When we came back to the temporary walkway I spotted the lady with the bouquet of flowers, who was now surrounded by runners going in both directions. She appeared undeterred by all this mayhem and, after all, why not? She had somewhere she needed to be, whereas we were all just running around in circles! Heading back down the street became a little scary. Following the runners in front of us, we didn’t return to the pavement (sidewalk) but instead ran down a 2 foot wide median. I started to feel a little uneasy when a double decker bus headed directly for us! According to Kirsty, dodging moving and static objects is a normal occurrence in English road racing! (My racing when I lived in England was mostly cross-country, where the most treacherous obstacles are cow manure…)
Heading back to the ExCel Centre, Kirsty and I decided we could take the two women ahead of us on the final hill (she helpfully reminded me that it was a short uphill followed by a long downhill), which we did, and cruised to the finish in 46:46. A row of young children were holding medals and I asked the smallest if I could have one of her medals. She hesitated and for a minute I thought that perhaps I wasn’t supposed to have one (!), but then she handed one over. Space blankets were available but the lady in charge of them was having a very hard time unfolding them and I decided I really didn’t need one. Kirsty and I stretched for a bit but we were eager to go back inside the Excel centre for the post-race food.
The Hotelympia 10K is sponsored by a hotel and catering association, which holds an Expo at the center over the weekend. The post-race food is provided by the Caterers’ Guild, and promised to be spectacular. We were not disappointed. There were cakes and croissants and pastries and cereal and sausage rolls (pigs-in-a-blanket) and eggs and baked beans and soup and fruit and hot chocolate and coffee and, of course, tea. We didn’t know where to start. We both grabbed a plate and started piling the food on. Everything tasted great so we ate as much as we could and then went back to get stuff to take home. (Apparently this is not the norm in the UK – Kirsty told me you’re lucky to get a bruised banana after most races.) After grabbing as much food as we could carry we headed upstairs to get our “goody bags” which we’d been reminded to pick up. The goody bags were really heavy and when we looked inside we found full-size bottles of ketchup and HP sauce, jars of coffee, and a can of energy drink called “Relentless Inferno.” Catchy. My only concern was how I was going to get all this home. (I ended up leaving the ketchup and HP sauce with Kirsty, who now has just 18 months to get through two bottles of each all by herself…)
Awards at UK races are a little different than in the US. They’re a bit stingy and don’t have tons of age group awards, so I was delighted to discover I’d won the Female V35 (veteran between ages 35 and 44) division. In the UK women are veterans (masters) at 35 while men have to wait until they’re 40!
While we were driving around the car park, trying to get out, I noticed a very long queue at a ticket machine. There must have been 12 people waiting. Twenty meters further along was another ticket machine that not a soul was using. Since I’m pretty sure there is no national love of queueing, I suddenly felt a horrible disappointment in the herd mentality of my countrypersons…
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If you’re looking for an interesting race with spectacular views and fabulous food and don’t mind dodging cranes and bus shelters, running over a swamp, and traveling 3,000 miles to get to it, the Hotelympia 10K might just be the race for you.
February 2008
The SRRC would love to hear about your running, racing, or crewing experiences! If you would like to submit a race report, to be posted on the SRRC website, please email srrunner@srrunners.org.