This was a fairly hard winter from a weather point of view, snow having fallen around new year, and a lot more following in February, but despite this, the first 9 weeks of the year consisted of consecutive weeks of 50 miles per week regardless of the conditions, and because of this I started to find that my racing performances became stronger and I started to beat close rivals more regularly. The culmination of this period coming at the “National” on 2nd March. The English Cross Country Union national championships – commonly known as the National – is the biggest cross country race of the year, drawing club athletes from the length and breadth of the country. Winning the individual title, or the team race is as great an achievement as you can get in the sport. For us “also rans” just being there and taking part in such a great race is pleasure enough. The 1985 event remains in the memory of anyone who was there, as being a bit special. The conditions on the course at Milton Keynes were quite exceptional with most of the distance being a sea of deep, clinging mud, with occasional stretches of calf-deep standing water. Certainly no place for the faint-hearted. The race itself was won by a then favourite athlete of mine – Dave Lewis of Rossendale Harriers. My effort was very satisfactory, placing in the top ½ of the 2000+ runners, and beating a close rival Maurice Marchant for the third time in our last three races. This time beating him by over 3 minutes.
Fairly knackered by these exertions, I took a fairly gentle week of mainly easy running, with just one hard session of intervals on the Wednesday followed by 2 days off to freshen up for another go at the Tonbridge 10 on the Saturday. Another good strong run rewarded me with another new personal best on the course, which felt a struggle the whole way, but this was probably due to setting off a bit too quickly and being unwilling to ease back. My mile splits went 5’20, 5’30, 5’40, 6’00 ( the 4th mile includes the dragging hill up past Poult Wood golf course ), 5’17, to reach half way in 27’47”, itself a p.b for 5 miles. Perhaps an inevitable slight slow down over the second lap, but still able to cover the last mile in 5’35” saw me cross the line in a new P.B of 56’17” feeling a bit disappointed not to break 56 minutes ! Another week, another race. Back to the Mascalls 10k, placing 6th this time, followed the next week by another run in the Kent A.C. 10, clocking 56’50” this year, almost a full minute off last years time, beating Mick Clements (an athlete I’d got to know quite well, and who I regarded as unassailable) in the process. A middle ear infection flattened me for a few days during the next week, but on April 8th, a fortnight after the Kent 10, I ran a respectable 77’15 Rochester ½ Marathon , slowed by extremely fierce winds, but placing 13th of about 500 starters. A fairly steady week of 46 miles which included one interval session on Thursday led up to the Isle of Thanet Marathon on 14th April. I’d entered this race as part of my build up for the Maidstone marathon, the intention being simply to go and run a steady 26 miles at a comfortable pace, having not tapered down or interrupted my training at all. However, literally gale force winds blowing into our faces meant an artificially slow pace for the first 5 miles reached in 33’56” and I found myself in the lead pack. A group of 3 took off, and I set off after a chasing pair in 4th and 5th . I caught them at about 9 miles and we moved the pace along briskly, from 10 miles in 66’27” to 15 miles in 95’30”, covering the 5 in 29’03”. One of the lead 3 dropped out and I pulled away from my 2 colleagues at about 17-18 miles. Going in to Ramsgate at approx 19 miles I was overtaken to put me in 4th place. The final 7 miles became very hilly and the direction of the course was by now again into a headwind so the pace slowed inevitably, but being highly placed kept me pushing as much as I could. I was delighted to finish 4th in a time of 2hrs 48’ 51”, only 5 minutes behind the winner and beating the noted Ultra Marathon champion Mark Pickard in the process !
Having worked a lot harder than I’d intended to, whilst keeping the mileage high, I decided upon steady running for the next week before getting back to it. On the international stage, the Portuguese Carlos Lopes set a new world marathon best of 2hrs 07’11” in Rotterdam on 20th April, and the following day the Welshman Steve Jones won the London marathon in 2hrs 08’16”, while Ingrid Kristiansen set a new world best in the women’s race of 2hrs 21’.
Straight back into hard work the next week with some tough intervals and fartlek sessions I ran a very strong 25 mile training run in 2hrs 42’ on a route that was predominantly flat, but had some tough hills in the final 5 miles. An excellent simulation of a marathon race, it was these solo long distance outings that helped build my confidence when toeing the line at the start of long distance races. Continuing through May combining high mileage and good quality sessions with regular racing, including a 9th place in the Tunbridge Wells ½ Marathon in 76’28” at the start of a record week’s mileage of 75.1 miles, followed by a week of 70 miles which got me to the weekend before the Marathon. As I was doing the diet again, I needed to do a “bleed out” run to start to deplete my natural glycogen store. Unwisely, I decided to run 8 miles barefoot on Dymchurch beach, which had a very bad effect on my calves. Two more days on a very low carb diet left me feeling shattered and my calves really achey. Although I only ran 10 miles in the 5 days leading up to the race, I think the damage had been done on the beach. My summary of the 1985 Maidstone Marathon noted that my general build up to the race in the previous months had been very encouraging and that a sub 2hr 40’ was a distinct possibility. On the day however, I didn’t feel comfortable right from the start and after only 2 – 3 miles I knew I was in a bit of trouble. Despite still being on target at the 5 and 10 mile points – 29’52” & 59’38” respectively – I knew I couldn’t maintain the pace for long. The stiffness in my calves spread to my hips, and by 14 miles I had deteriorated into a survival shuffle. Resigning myself to a poor time, I actually felt pleased as other runners overtook me, dropping from 15th to 32nd place by 20 miles, by which time I was almost ready to walk. The first 10 had taken 59’38”, the second 10 had taken 67’17” !!!. Inexplicably at around 22 miles I suddenly picked up and started to recover. Feeling stronger again I strode through the last 4 miles at a quicker pace and regained 6 places to finish 26th in a time of 2hrs 48’37” . Initially very disappointed, with a couple of days hindsight I reflected that it was just one of those things, and that the lesson learned was don’t run 8 miles barefoot in sand a week before a Marathon. It also indicated that my running was getting to a better level if I regarded 2hr 48’ as a disaster.
Four days later I was racing again, this time a mid-week 5km road race near Greenwich in 17’48”. Dropping the weekly mileage through June to approx 35 p.w. I continued with regular racing and hard training sessions.
I had recently discovered the existence of a local long distance footpath called The Wealdway , by reading a large plaque about it near Tonbridge castle. The route length being 80 miles from its start at Gravesend to the finish at Eastbourne and skirting the edge of Southborough en route, an idea formed in my mind that I’d like to run some (or maybe all) of it, so at just after 9 am on Sunday 7th July I set off from Gravesend, map in hand to find my way the 32 miles back to Southborough. A steady 5 hours later and I was home, having really enjoyed myself.
I seemed to be fairly well suited to longer distances, so in addition to the SLH 30 in early September, I decided to enter what was probably the classic ultra distance race – the London to Brighton road race – taking place in early October. Normal routines continued with hard training and racing, but with a steady build up of mileage including a record week of 80 miles in mid August. As usual, the first Saturday in September meant the SLH 30. And the hard work and higher mileage paid off as I had a really strong run to place 14th in a time of 3 hrs 18’49”, passing through the Marathon point in 2hrs 49’50” . The evidence that I had greater endurance was shown in the times for each of the four laps – 1st – 49’13”, 2nd – 49’02”, 3rd – 48’48”, 4th – 51’46”, keeping well under 7 minute mile pace even in the late stages of the race. Even after a 30 mile road race I didn’t take any days off, as my mind was on the forthcoming London to Brighton. During the next week, Kim and I discovered that she was pregnant. – changes ahead !
My training schedule at this point was getting pretty serious : The weekend after the SLH 30, I ran my longest training run ever, a road run which measured by car odometer was 38 miles, in a little over 4 ½ hours. I was out twice the following day for a total of 13 miles, and didn’t have a day off until the following Saturday, when having done 92 miles for the week, I rested for one day, prior to running another Marathon – at Worthing – treating it as a good training run, but still clocking 2 hrs 47 minutes. Within two days I went down with a heavy cold – probably being run down after the heavy schedule I’d been following. I allowed myself a few days off but struggled through a 25 miler, having to stop and walk three times, which with just a week to go, was not quite the ideal lead up to the London to Brighton race. I did a couple of days of 12 miles per day, then rested for the last few days leading up to the race. I have few memories of the race itself, but I covered the 53.3 mile course in 7 hrs 01’ 27”, averaging just under 8 minute miles for the distance and finished in pretty good shape in 34th position. There is an interesting footnote to this race. At the time, South Africa was banned from taking part in any athletics events held under the rules of the I.A.A.F ( the response to the apartheid regime in South Africa ), meaning that no South Africans could legitimately compete in the race. Presumably unknown to the majority of the 140 competitors, the race included two South Africans – ironically, one black, one white. Hoseah Tjale and Derrick Tivers placed first and second respectively in the race, and within a few days the IAAF had issued a blanket ban on all competitors in the race. From what I could gather, the ban was totally ignored and everyone continued as normal.
Continuing the normal routine of racing most weekends, including a “semi marathon” in Grand Synthe , near Dunkerque in France – which was probably 20k rather 13.1 miles as my time of 71’36” suggests, but it was still a quick run and as a member of the strong team from Tonbridge AC comprising Mark Scrutton, Pete Mason, Cain Bradley, Mark Hookway, Neil Hairs and myself, we came away with the team prize very comfortably. A revisit of the first 30 miles of the Wealdway the day before New Years Eve was a great way to finish what had been a very good year, ending with a mileage tally of 2,534.
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