The 1st race as Usingh Bolt.

Alrighty then. Earlier today I ran the Birmingham half marathon.  I worked out it was my 51^st half as Usingh Bolt! In the week that I marked 10 years since my first run using this name.  Great atmosphere today, absolutely loved it.  And hopefully many more to come.  I mentioned in my last blog that I was christened Usingh Bolt after posting a photo doing the lightning bolt pose on Facebook in 2011.  An almost immediate and inspired comment from my cousin, Minda Singh, led to the name.

After the 2011 London marathon of which I genuinely have no memories, I knew I had a place in the 2012 London marathon thanks to the old system of getting a place at your 5^th ballot attempt if you had been unsuccessful on the 4 previous occasions.  I believe it was the last year it was in place.  After that, the ballot was open for a week, so the system was not feasible as ballot entries jumped into 6 figures!

My main decision for 2012 was whether I would do my 6th marathon and 4^th London for charity like all previous attempts or would I do it for ‘fun.’  I have never understood why some marathon runners were labelled as fun runners!  A 5K fun run, yes.  Even a 10K fun run I can accept.  But a fun runner in a marathon?  Bit of an oxymoron for me.

I decided running for charity was the best way to go.  My main reason was that it was still the biggest motivator for me when running.  It gave a degree of focus to my training, albeit that training had been poor for most of my marathons and helping to make a difference is one of the ideals I try to live by.  Being in a position to pick a charity of my choice the decision was influenced by things happening close to me.  So, I decided to run for Children with Cancer UK. 

I’m not sure why, but I didn’t do the Birmingham half in 2011 so London 2011 was my only race that year and London 2012 would be my next race.  I think family commitments meant I didn’t do Birmingham half which is a shame as I had done the first 2 and as my local race it was the one race, I was committed to doing annually.

I have no idea what my training plan for London 2012 was like.  I had my Garmin watch, still the chunky Forerunner 305 square one!  I didn’t download it to my laptop and of course Strava was not around. Or maybe it was but I certainly wasn’t aware of it.

Similar to London 2011, I booked my own hotel and travel. Train journey down on the Saturday morning. Straight over to the Excel arena, pick up my number, wonder around for a while and then home.  I think I used to partake in the pasta party when it was a thing.

My first main memory of 2012 is from the expo.  After you got your number, you could drop your running top off to be personalized and then collect it as you left the expo.  I remember going over and asking for the charity vest to be personalized and I wrote down Usingh Bolt.  The guy who was taking my details looked at what I had written down.  He looked a bit bemused.  Then he looked at me.  Looked at what I had written and then looked at me again.  And then he chuckled.  A good-natured chuckle with a big grin on his face.  He called out to another of the volunteers helping with the printing and showed it to them.  And that person chuckled as well.  He looked at me, gave me high 5 and said, “I like it, Usingh!”

This is the reaction I have got the most over the years.  People who make the connection and have a chuckle and like me when I saw cousins’ comment on Facebook and think “That’s good/clever/funny/inspired/amusing” etc.  Occasionally people don’t quite get it and that’s OK.  I’ve heard other people explain it to friends with them when they’ve said “I don’t get it.  Usingh?”  The explanation is pretty on point.  “He’s a Sikh.  They have the name Singh. It’s a clever/funny play on the Bolt name.” 

I’m not going to lie.  I’ve had a bit of good fortune using this name.  More on that in this blog.  I’ve got coverage where maybe I wouldn’t if I wasn’t using the name.  But more than for me, it works will for me and hopefully the many charities I have ran for.  Getting print space in local newspapers, and now online, helps to raise awareness for the causes and I’m not going to lie it helps me a little bit with motivation and belief, especially as my challenges have got bigger and tougher.

So, vert handed in, I wondered around the expo. As in previous years I got a couple of running bands from the Lucozade stand.  I felt like I could get 6 hours at London that year even though I had been nowhere near in 2011.  As well as the 6-hour band I took the rather optimistic approach of getting the 5 hrs. 45 as well!  I do remember in the past when we got the London magazine for the expo there would be a voucher for the Lucozade stand which for £10 saw you get a couple of bottles of Lucozade Sport, some of their jellybeans, flap jacks and energy bars.  At this time, I was still very much of the belief that Lucozade Sport was the go-to drink.  John Barnes did a great job in that advert from the 1990’s convincing me of this!!

There was one other highlight for me at the London expo that year.  I met the legend that is Fauja Singh.  As a Sikh runner (or should that be wannabe runner) at that time he was inspiration.  Not just to Sikhs of course.  But to many people, given his age and how he ran a marathon at the age of 100.  I spent 20 minutes with him mostly, taking photos for many people that came up and asked for a picture with him.  I remember him saying to me in Punjabi, “Young man, why are they making such a fuss of me.  They are here to run.  I’m here to run.  I’m no-one special.”  Just an amazing humble man.  The one thing I forgot to do.  Get my photo with him!  Schoolboy error! 

Let’s fast forward to race day.  I was in the red start again and I felt quite relaxed. I had a plan in mind and this being my 4^th London marathon, although there was still a buzz to be there, I wasn’t as overawed, tense, nervous or as anxious as I had been in previous years.  As I had done for every race upto this point, half or full, I had a bottle of Lucozade Sport in hand.  One swig every mile until it an out.

I remember starting quite steadily and it’s the first year I have a clear memory of running past Woolwich Gurdwara, about 5K or so into the route.  I had noticed the Gurdwara in 2007 and 2008 but had been on the wrong side of the road for them to see me.  This time I ran on the right-hand side as we came round the roundabout so I could run past my fellow Sikhs.  And it felt good.  A couple of loud shouts in Punjabi to support me, some high 5 fives and I felt good.

I mentioned that the name has been a bit of a lucky charm for me earlier and maybe helped me get coverage I otherwise would not have.  At about 12.7 miles this happened in a big way.  How do I know the almost exact distance so well?  12.8 miles is hallway along Tower Bridge with the half marathon point being as runners come off the bridge.  As always there was a massive buzz as we ran onto the bridge.  It is an electrifying part of the course.  I looked over to my left and saw 2 runners who had been standing, set off running.  I realized that they had been talking to someone on the side of the bridge.  Who was that someone?  Only Olympic gold medalist Denise Lewis!

I remember thinking I might as well do a run past and point at my name!  This being 2012, the major sporting event in London was yet to come.  The Olympics and the Paralympics.  There were of course high hopes for many of the British stars taking part in the games and in Athletics there was a sharp focus on Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis, who bother delivered on that super Saturday along with Greg Rutherford.  The other huge name in the games was of course, Usain Bolt.  Of course, what London did not know was that another running Bolt was in London that year!

So, I approached her, caught her eye, and pointed to the name on my top.  The reaction?  What I mentioned earlier.  A quick realization of the play on the name, a big smile and then she called me over and said, “We have to interview you.”  I’m not quite clear on how the interview went.  Of course, I mentioned the great man and of course Children with Cancer.  Afterwards on Facebook I was tagged into many pictures people had taken as the interview was shown on the BBC.  One such photo is below. 

It gave my fundraising a bit of a boost and that was the big win.  And getting the name out to a wider audience was pretty good.  The second half of the race went by quite well.  The 2012 marathon was not as painful as the other London marathons and that was because I followed the 6-hour wrist pacer as closely as I could.  I do remember having to walk most of mile 23 as I was spent.  But I managed to get going again and finished the race in 6:06:59. My 2^nd best marathon time and best time at London by 10 minutes.  Also, the least painful.  A job well done, for my last marathon!!  As it turned out of course that is not true!  I wouldn’t run a marathon again until 2014 and I wouldn’t do London again until 2017.  I didn’t enter the ballot for 2013, I do remember that much.  After that I did enter most ballots.

Would I race as Usingh Bolt again?  It was meant to be a 1-time thing.  As much as I had enjoyed fellow runners having a chuckle with me about it and hearing so many of the crowd read the name and shout support it was meant to be a one off.  Never mind Usain Bolt at London 2012, Usingh got there first!

But later in 2012 something happened that potentially could be seen as the catalyst for the start of me really getting into running and it certainly started my love affair with the Great North Run.  At the time Bupa were one of the main headline sponsors of the Great North Run.  They ran a Facebook competition in about May, maybe June 2012 offering 10 people a chance to run in that years GNR.  I entered it. Why not?  It was free to do and all I had to do was put a comment on. 

In July, I remember receiving a phone call telling me I was one of the winners!  And that was how I came to run the GNR 2012.  It wasn’t planned but it would be my 3^rd one and this time I would start making it a regular part of my run calendar.

Next week I’ll talk about it more as well as the 2 half marathons I did in 2013 and how my times improved, ending with a chance conversation that led to me deciding to do my first big running challenge, for me at least, in 2014.

Have a good week and please share this with others.  Ordinary people really can achieve the impossible when they put their mind to it.  Always happy to answer any question anyone has.