Golden Oldies - 3 - The Balluta 5 Miles

The Balluta 5 Miles probably deserves pride of place as THE classic golden oldie, as far as Maltese road running is concerned.

I'm not well qualified to recount the history of this race, which I believe goes back to the 60s. But I can recount my own experience of it. For a brief spell in 1982, having taken an interest in road running, I joined the Malta University athletics club, and a guy named Paul, who was very active in athletics at that time, took me for some practice on the route of an upcoming event - the Balluta 5 Miles.

We met on a late, cool, September evening at Spinola Place, in front of the Tigullio night club, which was still in business at the time. A few minutes after we set off I realised that the route was much more than I had bargained for. The road went up to Paceville, further up to St Andrew's, and then further and further up through Tal-Ibraġ. The hill was steep, and it seemed as if it would never end. It did, in fact, finally end after we had gone past the Halland Hotel, with me panting desperately, and Paul asking me if I was OK... Well, sort of, I was still alive. The route proceeded towards the Tal-Balal crossroads, and from then on it was blissfully downhill through the main road of San Gwann, all the way to the steep "tal-Kirxa" descent to Balluta, plus a final short stretch towards Spinola place.

The Balluta 5 was the first stage of what used to be called the Winter League (nowadays the MAAA Road Running League), but it was generally far from being a wintry affair. Three in the afternoon, on the first Saturday of October is usually almost as hot as the peak of summer! But for the 1982 edition, my first-ever official road race, the 'winter' label was well deserved. It was a rainy afternoon, one of those autumn affairs where it rains buckets and Malta's roads are transformed into rivers. My race, a handful of days after the trial evening run, went reasonably well as there was no nasty surprise element of the Tal-Ibraġ hill. My most vivid recollections of that race, 27 years later, are running ankle-deep in water at the lower end of San Gwann, and crossing the finish, very pleased with myself, in penultimate place. It was my first and probably highest ever placing in a Winter League race, since on that day the entire field consisted of just about 25 competitors...

It was close to a decade later that I returned to running, which meant that I took part in this race for several more times in the 90s. But not for too long, as the event would soon be discontinued, perhaps due to traffic management problems, or maybe because of its non-standard distance, given that the other MAAA road running races were 10 km long. Pity. This was a classic race, and it deserved to keep its place in the Maltese road running calendar.

24 May 2009 - Tervuren Parkloop, 10.8km - 0h47:37

Tervuren is a suburb of Brussels that is one of the most popular places of residence for expatriates around the Belgian capital. It is dominated by a beautiful park, built by the flamboyant King Leopold II in the late 19th century, and housing a grand African museum.

One could hardly expect a race held in Tervuren not to feature the local park prominently. There were, in fact, no surprises, and the route quickly headed into the park where we negotiated numerous paths under the shade provided by the tall trees on this gorgeous May morning. The ground conditions were generally fine since it hadn't rained for quite a few days, so we could concentrate simply on racing each other and on the changing inclines, mostly not too challenging, and alternating over and over from slightly uphill to slightly downhill.

The race distance wasn't advertised very clearly at all. The Watermolen Cup website gave the distance as 14 km in one place, and 10.2 km in another. On the spot, before the start, it transpired that it was the latter case, so I reckoned if I did well I would finish in my 'standard' 44 minutes for 10k plus a further minute to cover the extra 200 metres - adding up to 45 minutes.

I ran at a moderately strong pace, overtaking a large number of rivals throughout the route while going uphill as well downhill. But still, at the end, I was just a little bit disappointed for two reasons. First of all, in the last few minutes I almost tired out, allowing two of my rivals to catch up and overtake me. Besides which, the finishing time was worse than expected - 0h47:37. Oh well, I thought, my 'standard' 10k must be getting slower with the advancing years, and my preferred race distance is pushing evermore toward the longer distances...

Until I discovered that the actual distance run was not 10.2 km at all, but 10.8, which is 600 metres longer than expected! Which accounts for my getting tired in the last few minutes, since I had been targeting an earlier completion, as well as for the extra two and a half minutes. Conclusion - my 'standard' 10k pace hasn't deteriorated, yet... 88th out of 312 finishers, 24th out of 68 in my age category, isn't such a bad placing after all.

Golden Oldies - 2 - The St Patrick's AC Summer League

For a few years, the St Patrick's Athletic Club Summer League 'took over' from the MMOC fun runs. They were more formal, with pre-registration and overall final classifications, and were longer at a standard 10km, but retained the summer evening feel of the defunct fun runs.

One characteristic of these races was that there never was established a fixed routine of locations where they were held. This resulted in a long series of one-offs that was very interesting in itself, which included:

Xgħajra - a picturesque and hilly route in an area that, for most of us, was not very familiar. I hold fond memories of this lovely race;

Pembroke - another hilly area, including some rough patches going through the Armed Forces practice shooting area (luckily not in use during the race), consisting of a double loop;

Naxxar - this one didn't work out well, since there was a loop within a loop resulting in a whole mix-up of bad turnings and incorrect timings;

Għajn Tuffieħa - practically a carbon copy of the MAAA Winter League event, this was unique in the fact that it was a terrifically hot day, with a temperature of 40 Celsius, and several cases of athletes being affected badly by the heat. I remember drinking lots of water during the day, in preparation for the heat-fest, and surviving the ordeal very well;

Sliema - this wasn't a summer evening affair, but a morning race held on Mnarja, 29 June, which marked the beginning of one particular Summer League. It was a very well-attended event, held on the occasion of one of the many parish feasts of this locality, in conjunction with a local band club. We ran down Dingli Street and along the Sliema promenade and back. It was as hot as you could expect of a summer league.

The organisation of three races within a few weeks turned out to be too burdensome for the St Patrick's club, and the Summer League crystallised into its one stable component, which was the Birżebbuġa 10K, still alive and kicking and one of the main road running events of the Maltese summer.

Golden Oldies - 1 - The MMOC Fun Runs

I love the Maltese running scene. It's one of the factors that I miss most of my native country. There's a well established calendar of races, and one gets used to a yearly cycle of training for the different events, each of which provides a pleasant, friendly atmosphere and is well attended.

Inevitably, along the years, some events eventually die out. Care for a nostalgia trip...?

The MMOC Fun Runs

I will start with the event where it all started, for me. The Malta marathon organising committee's fun runs throughout each summer. These used to be a series of short races held roughly every other Wednesday in different parts of the island, starting at 7pm. My first such fun run was in Marsascala, starting next to the San Tumas tower, all the way along the coast towards the old national swimming pool and back, for a total of 4.2km. In those days (the very early 90s) there would be over 200 participants in these runs, and the printed results would be handed out at the following race.

Other races in this series, most of them 4 to 5 km long, included:
Birżebbuġa - from Al Fresco to Freeport and back
Ta' Xbiex - Whitehall Mansions to Tignè and back
Siġġiewi - starting at the main square, a 5km loop through country roads around this village
Qawra - another fast loop starting and finishing next to Ta' Fra Ben
Rabat - 7.7km from Point de Vue place to Dingli and back, finishing next to the Roman Villa
Żurrieq - a 5 km loop starting from the Zurrieq Wolves clubhouse.

At the end of each race, they would raffle out a pair of shoes, by drawing the number given according to your placing. I was lucky at least twice on these occasions. On one remarkable instance, at a stage when the top athletes had begun to concentrate on more 'serious' events, I even came in first! This was at Siġġiewi - an incredible sensation, which is bound to remain a unique case.

It's a pity that these fun runs are no more. The informality, the summer evening atmosphere... they were unbeatable. They were also a means to encourage new participants to join the wonderful world of athletics, a sort of 'soft' introduction that was a 100% success in my case.

Unfortunately, their raison d'etre gradually came to an end. The fun runs had been introduced to fill a long gap of inactivity in athletics during the months of summer. But, with the growth of the Maltese athletics scene, other races began to 'creep' into this season too, with an inevitable dwindling and eventual dying out of attendances.