And then there were ten: Reflections on the 2009 Cambridge Boundary Run

By Mark Coley

Back in April 2008 an interesting e-mail dropped into my inbox. It had been addressed to the generic address of the club as listed on the Cambridge University Sport website, and as webmaster, I was on the distribution list. The author, Mr James Hasler, who was an alumnus of Peterhouse, was a member of the Hare & Hounds between 1947 and 1949. He wanted to pass on some of the history of the first Boundary Run which took place in 1949, sixty years ago.

James recounted how at the start of the 1948-9 academic year he went to a party hosted by Chris Brasher in St John’s College with his running partner Derek Shorrocks, also from John’s. They managed to look at some of the committee records of the club and discovered that in 1924 ‘three men and a dog’ ran around the borough boundary. With it being 25 years later on at that stage, they decided that the run must be done again. So, after buying a map, they spent the next few weeks pioneering a route. Each week they would run out to a point on the boundary and then run a few miles along it before returning to college. Next time they’d return to the point they had previously reached and continue along the next section. Gradually, the entire route was covered.

James announced to the club that he would lead a run around the boundary, and, sometime around February 1949, about fifteen members of the club assembled at the start on the Fen Causeway and ran a clockwise circuit. They started after lunch and were back around five or six o’clock, arriving in ones and twos. Varsity, who must have been quite interested in cross-country races in those days, published a photograph. James and Derek are second and third from the left respectively. According to the report in Varsity only 10 men managed to complete the run, with the first man back after 3¼ hours.

Varsity Front Page Saturday March 5th 1949	Twelve men set off! James Hasler and Derek Shorrocks are 2nd and 3rd from the left respectively.

Although Chris Brasher didn’t take part himself, he persuaded the committee to take the unusual step of awarding Spartan Colours to James and Derek for their services to the club. Neither of them was fast enough to run in the second eight against Oxford.

James wasn’t sure if the run had continued each year, though he knows it happened in the 1970s as his daughter, who was studying at the University at that time, bought him a Borough Boundary Tie which was emblazoned with the image of a milestone. There had certainly been a gap of 20 years between 1985 and 2005, but Simon Rutherford (Girton; Club Captain 2005-6), decided in summer 2005 that the event must be staged again. It seems that there is a natural desire among long-distance runners to seek out the open fields and to take others with them.

In 2005 I was new to running. I had been dared by fellow medic James Gill (Hughes Hall) to join in the Freshers’ Fun Run. Fearing I might be last by a long way I set off and finished in a reasonable time. A new challenge was before me and I joined the club. My first official race was a week later on Magog Down when we raced against the RAF and the Eastern Counties. Over the ensuing months runs to Baits Bite Lock and back increased my stamina, but 13 miles was still further than I could ever have dreamed of running. When Si Rutherford asked for help staging the 2006 run I volunteered to man the ‘ambulance car’ as the distance was too great for me to run. A medic with transport would always be useful. It was probably then that interest in longer-distance running took off. I had another challenge before me!

The following year James Gill was responsible for organising the 2007 Boundary Run, and I gave him some help. Together we mapped and measured the route, looked for paths that took the runners away from traffic and updated Alex Ho’s (Caius) excellent instruction booklet. I also wrote some web pages that enabled people to leave their contact details together with a validated e-mail address. Mapping and distance estimation had come of age with the advent of GPS watches. Gone were the days of map wheels and pieces of string. By that time I could run 13 miles steadily and in the weeks leading up to the event I would run the northern or southern half regularly with friends. Unfortunately a short illness a day before that year’s Boundary Run left me exhausted after only 4 miles and at the Wort’s Causeway water station I called it a day.

2008’s run was organised by Laura Spence (Wolfson). Again, I helped with mapping, route measurement and use of the website to collate the details of interested runners. One particularly enjoyable part of helping was arranging 18-mile weekly runs along the route, setting out from Wolfson College, with the offer of brunch afterwards. That year, following numerous ‘complaints’ from the year before that the course wasn’t quite long enough, Laura decided it would be good if the route was extended to 26 miles and 385 yards. In spite of some nasty injuries when marking the course the day before the run (caused by a spectacular bike fall as my front wheel jammed after a bag of flour swung into it as I rode through a pot hole) I managed to run the first half comfortably, and then the next 4 miles uncomfortably, before giving up at the King’s Hedges water station. Two of my college friends (Joseph Stevick and Ulrich Paquet) had kindly written a message in flour for me at mile 15 (‘Go Mark!’ I think it said), so I’m glad I made it past that point!

So, to 2009. It was approaching Christmas the year before and the committee was in need of someone to take on the Boundary Run organisation. James Gill and I stepped forward. Having spent so much time helping over the previous years, most of the groundwork had been done. It would also be a welcome distraction from final-year medicine. A few route changes were needed, mainly due to congestion problems at Coton, as well as the closure of numerous paths around Addenbrooke’s for building work. Fortunately it was still possible to keep the half marathon/full marathon split and have the half marathon finish at a place suitable for bus collection, and have the full marathon finish at the door of Sweatshop. Many of the paths around the city had by then been mapped and uploaded to OpenStreetMap.org (several by me, particularly around Grantchester and the Boundary Run route), so finding a route that was the right distance was actually quite simple. Being in charge of the route also allowed the odd detour to take people onto paths which they may never have run along, such as past the miniature railway in Newnham. Such detours would not have been possible without the permission and co-operation of the various landowners throughout the route, and thanks are due to the Wildlife Trust, St Catharine’s College, Girton College and the Coton Countryside Reserve, all of whom have been very supportive.

The weeks leading up to the run involved a massive advertising push. Posters were displayed in all the colleges, numerous departments, the window of Ryder and Amies, and, judging by the number of downloads from the website, many places of work. Rumour has it that even the operating theatre notice board at the West Suffolk Hospital was advertising the run! The poster used a competition-winning image from the previous year, designed by Wendy Vandoolaeghe (a Caius alumnus), involving hares and hounds, and it was styled to match the website. Between January and March the Boundary Run page was requested over 4,500 times.

The website was used to take names and contact details and application forms were downloadable. In the weeks leading up the run regular updates would be sent out to everyone who had shown an interest in running. Gradually, more and more entry forms came in. Each year the run has become more popular and efficient logistics would be needed on the day if everyone’s numbers, pins, maps, instructions packs and Sweatshop money-off vouchers were to be ready. Robin Brown (Jesus) volunteered to handle applications and bank the cheques. I’m not sure he anticipated how much work this might involve!

As has been the case for the past couple of years, KPMG were happy to sponsor our event by providing us with t-shirts for those who registered early. The design brief was for a bright visible t-shirt with an image that echoed those on previous t-shirts, but unique for 2009. There were a number of people who appeared a little upset that the t-shirt only commemorated a half marathon. Needless to say they were then reassured when they were asked to look at the image on the back of the t-shirt. Anyone witnessing the slide show on the Senate House/Old Schools at the start of this 800th anniversary year would be clear that Cambridge is renowned for innovation. This extends to t-shirt design too.

A large route needs a good map, but reproducing commercial maps can be expensive. Step forward the OpenStreetMap project and low cost, high quality maps become feasible. The only problem is that they require people to donate their time and effort in constructing the maps from scratch, using nothing more than local knowledge, a GPS device and a connection to the internet. Fortunately, the project has been running for a number of years now and Cambridge is remarkably well mapped. Not all the paths used by the Boundary Run featured at the start of the year, but by February they had all been mapped and a high-quality bitmap image could be created. Onto this image a route line and labels were added using the open source program Inkscape, and with the addition of a title and a few logos from our sponsors a royalty-free map was ready to print.

The week before the run, fresh fruit, fresh Sainsbury’s hot cross buns and several boxes of Mars were ordered. A delivery of bottled drinks arrived from KPMG, and a trip to Tesco was scheduled to buy 176 litres of water. A further delivery of running-related goods (signs, tape, posts, clipboards, pins, foil blankets) meant everything was ready. A mammoth print run and hours and hours of folding maps, booklets and numbers, and everything was ready to go. Special thanks must go to the folding team who worked tirelessly to prepare the runner packs. Most of the Friday night was spent folding. Thanks go to Charlotte Roach (Trinity), James Chettle (Clare), Tim Pattison (Downing), Aidan Brown (Robinson) and James Gill (Hughes Hall). Everyone had their own technique of folding things and inserting them into plastic pockets. James Gill had a unique technique of not realising the runner number needed to match the luggage tag number and he mixed ascending runner numbers with descending luggage tag numbers. There was a general consensus of fury when this was discovered but as with all good teams, we pulled together to carry our weakest innumerate member. Gradually the pile of maps got lower and lower and after a refreshment break at Wolfson Bar we were eventually done for the night.

Saturday was route marking day. Teams of people set off to circumnavigate the city. James Gill and Aidan Brown marked out Fen Ditton to Babraham Road, Joe Stevick marked from there to Grantchester Meadows and a few parts around Coton, Tim Pattison and I marked from Grantchester Meadows to Coton, and Tom Stecher (Downing) and Simon Gilbert (Downing) marked from Madingley Road to Fen Ditton. James said afterwards that one resident was concerned that the flour arrow might linger for too long if there wasn’t rain, so James offered to personally brush it away after the run. Fortunately a neighbour overheard the discussion and he said he’d be happy to clear anything away that might remain. From my own experience of the conversations that occurred with the public whilst marking the route it was clear everyone was supportive of our efforts to get people running in Cambridge. Some of them even wanted to know what time the runners would pass so they could support!

By all accounts it was Tim’s first time at marking using flour and I think he enjoyed it. He used over half a packet on a single arrow and it was only after I pointed out we had about 4 bags to last 4 miles that he realised he had been a little too generous. His arrow was very impressive though and stretched about 10m when the flour was smoothed out. I don’t think anyone could have failed to miss it. In total, based on the receipts that were reimbursed, I think we laid around 57kg of flour on the streets of Cambridge. Either that or someone had been making some cakes.

Sunday was Boundary Run day. The committee were supposed to be at the start at 8am, but, save for Rich Mathie (Selwyn alumnus) who was helping me affix car park signs after I gave him a lift to the start, the first people only arrived at 8.20am. Things would be tight! We all had jobs to do. Water, fruit and chocolate needed unpacking and distributing to the various teams that were manning the water stations, and the team in the registration room had to set up and give out numbers and t-shirts, as well as deal with any late entrants (of which there were many). Some were directing people and some helping load the buses with bags for transport to the half marathon finish. Thanks are due to Polly Keen (Murray Edwards), Helen Rollins (Corpus), Lauren Barklie (Magdalene), Anna Anderson (Girton), Jane Mackey (Selwyn) and Naomi Taschimowitz (Trinity) who dealt efficiently with the hoards of people,

About 10 minutes before the start word came to me that the Cambridge Evening News had arrived and wanted to talk to someone in charge. I made my way to the front of the David Lloyd building to be confronted by a reporter with a camera. He wanted me to say something about the Boundary Run. Mindful that the run briefing was due five minutes later I had a single take to say something that hopefully made some sense!

This picture is from the article in the Cambridge Evening News. Click on the photo to read the article (also available on the Cambridge News website).

A few minutes later, after a short welcome and safety briefing, the run began. I started steadily but was rapidly overtaken by several hundred people. Recent late nights preparing for the day had left me a little exhausted and running a lot more slowly than I had been accustomed to (though it turned out I had a longstanding running-related injury, though this didn’t come to light until a month later after a surprise hospital admission). Having said that seeing a line of three hundred runners in front of you, weaving their way up Shelford Road to the 4-mile mark, is actually quite satisfying knowing that you’ve played a part in getting them all there on that day. The hill was hard, but seeing Joan Lasenby (Trinity) and Charlotte Roach giving out water at the first water station was a huge boost. Joan later told me that a kind gentleman had seen her setting out cups of water and volunteered to help them out. I think this was gratefully appreciated as the influx of runners had been sudden!

A few miles further down the route after passing Addenbrooke’s and the guided bus works I passed one of my friends, Ben Cocker (a John’s alumnus), who was acting as our run photographer. Ben kindly sent in 186 of the best photos and these were displayed on the CUH&H website.

The next water station was at Grantchester Meadows, expertly manned by Will Mackay (Robinson), Aidan Brown and a father-and-son team of Doctors Graham and Pete Leek (Cardiff and Jesus respectively). The Mars bars had been popular and I seem to remember feeling particularly hungry at that point and ate about three of them. Onwards to Coton!

The next few miles were a bit of a blur, but the large arrow that Tim had so beautifully constructed the day before leading to the left turn by St Catharine’s astroturf pitch cheered me up no end. I plodded on eventually arriving at Coton to cheers from fellow Hareys. Declan Murray (Magdalene) and James Kelly (Jesus), who had also won the half, had been dutifully recording finishing times and positions under the watchful gaze of Tim Pattison who had been acting manager that day for the half-marathon finish. So enthusiastic had Tim been about being in charge that he even decided to buy a gazebo. I’m not sure if he had visions of it being some sort of baldaccino or regal canopy for himself, but he felt the finish wouldn’t be complete without one.

Those runners brave enough to continue would have met Joan Lasenby again at the forth water station, together with her daughter. I’m not sure how Joan managed to sell the idea of helping, but an earlier e-mail seemed to suggest it had taken a little effort! Joan wrote: “My daughter will come with me – I've managed to persuade her that standing there handing out water will be exciting :-)” Many thanks to the Lasenby family!

The last water station was manned by Jane Mackey and James Maheswaran (Queens’) and involved a fairly long bike ride to rendezvous with an unmarked black car stocked full of nutritional products for those that could make it to the 22-mile mark. Organising events like this when so few people have their own transport is always tricky, but throw in the odd grad-medic with car (James Gill!) and the problem is solved.

The bus journey back to the start took us up the M11 and along the A14 to avoid the city centre queues. From the vantage point on the A14 we could see runners going north to Milton approaching mile 19. A few seconds later we could see others returning from Baits Bite lock (mile 22). A further intercept saw yet more runners taking the paths around the airport (mile 25). Seeing this certainly made me appreciate just how big the course is.

Back at the finish various Hareys kept track of those completing the full Boundary Run and directed people to the massage area where we had a team of people who were willing to smooth everyone’s aching muscles. For the past few years students training in massage at Cambridge Regional College under Lorrain Kirk have volunteered to help us and in return they gain useful experience of working at events, which helps them with their qualifications. We would like to commend Lauren, Debbie, Laura, Stuart and Roy Essandoh and their wonderful abilities at restoring proper function to our lower limbs!

The first man back at Coton after running the half marathon was James Kelly (CUH&H) in 1:14:49 and the first woman was Amanda Henry (Sudbury Joggers) in 1:31:26. The first man back after completing the full marathon distance was James Chettle (CUH&H) in 3:02:30 and the first woman was Helen Mort in 3:21:40. In total, 310 runners were recorded as completing the first half with a further 71 completing the second half. Full results are available here.

The start and finish was hosted by the David Lloyd Leisure Group, an arrangement made possible by the tireless Andy Noyce of Sweatshop’s Cambridge store who put in immense effort to make everything run so smoothly. Sweatshop was founded by the same Chris Brasher who was around at the time of the first Boundary Run and the company has been supportive of CUH&H over many years. We wouldn’t have been able to put on such a successful event without the help of our sponsors. Hopefully the advertising and exposure to their excellent facilities will help both businesses for many years to come.

Of course, no report would be complete without some comments expressed by those who participated. Everyone in CUH&H who helped out should feel proud that they have been a part of something big. Well done to us all!

Helping organise such a large event is exhausting but very rewarding and I would recommend it to anyone. In response to the last comment above, a pint definitely sounds good. After finals perhaps…!

Mark Coley

Report written June 2009 in between exams and the day after participation in the Blenheim Triathlon.

Last modified: Saturday July 04 2009 19:51:36