…..diary of an also ran 2

The poor standard of athletics at my school was underlined by the fact that while I was among the best there, and was always well to the fore in all track and cross country events, when we had to take on our counterparts from other schools in the district my distinctly average ability was shown up in all its limitations.  I well remember lining up at the start of an inter-school 1500 metres race and with the shot of the starter’s pistol, the feeling of blind terror as I watched the majority of the field tear off at a pace that equated approximately to my personal best time for 400 metres. Pride insisted that I made some attempt at a chase, which lasted just a couple of hundred metres before a long and painfully slow drag to the finish line in the throes of what I’d later learn to call “oxygen debt”.  My lack of any real pace meant that track running would never yield any success and it was the longer distance disciplines of cross country running that appealed  to me most. Again though, the pleasure of becoming the school cross country champion was tempered by being an “also ran” when pitched against the best of the rest from other schools. Having said all that, it’s probably fair to mention that the notion of any sort of organised regular training never really entered my head ! I left school in 1974, aged 16, and as far as participating was concerned, I took no further part in athletics for several years.

Fast forward to January 1981. Aged 23, I’d done what felt like the obligatory few years after leaving school of over doing the drinking and under doing the exercise, which from a sporting point of view had resulted in me becoming a slightly overweight, mediocre local league footballer !  By 1981 however, I had returned to my normal weight and was becoming disenchanted with playing football.  I had continued doing a small amount of occasional running on and off, and had heard about a new event to be staged in April – The first London Marathon – which was being organised and overseen by the former Olympic athlete Chris Brasher, and was being promoted as the first “peoples marathon” in Britain. Brasher had picked up the idea, having seen the success of the mass participation New York Marathon. Despite my typical run being in the range of 2 or 3 miles, the idea of attempting the classic 26.2 mile distance struck a chord with me, and I posted off a request for an entry form. Quickly receiving a reply advising me that the deadline for entries was already passed, I stopped my little bit of training and forgot all about it…. Until the evening of 20^th March when during Friday night beers with my mate Iain Presnell, he suddenly mentioned that he had an entry for the London Marathon in 9 days time, but had no intention of running it.  For me, there could  only be one possible reaction, and as soon as he agreed to let me run with his number, I started to think about how to prepare myself to run a marathon with just 8 days  notice.

Up until that point the small amount of running that I had been doing amounted to little more than the occasional 3 or 4 mile jog, mostly run wearing the black and white “baseball boots” .  £2.50 a pair, and definitely my favourite footwear at the time, but most definitely not the right shoes to either train or run a marathon in.  So I guess I had two problems to deal with in the 8 days leading up to the big day. The first one – getting some running shoes – I could probably sort out without too much trouble. The other one – not being even slightly prepared or trained for a Marathon – would have to take care of itself.

Having only run such short distances before, I needed to know how realistic the chances were of being able to cover the daunting prospect of 26.2 miles., so the following day I put on the boots and set out for a run that I had measured by car to be 13 miles, just to see if I could.  Saturday 21^st March 1981 is for me the significant date that marks the start of my becoming a runner.    13 miles was a distance much greater than I’d ever attempted before, but I managed to cover the distance without stopping,  in 1 hour 57 minutes and felt secretly quite pleased with the effort. Any fleeting optimism I may have felt evaporated the following morning though as the lack of any previous training had left my leg muscles so stiffened up and aching that walking was a major ordeal, and the idea of running within the next few days seemed extremely unlikely. The exciting prospect of the Marathon now just a week away enabled me to put the discomfort to the back of my mind, and 4 days later the aches and pains had eased up enough to go out for a 3 mile jog to loosen up. With my two run marathon training schedule thus completed , on the Wednesday prior to the race I went to London to collect my race number – 4461 – at the race registration at the Strand Palace Hotel. More next time…..

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