A little while ago I pitched my suggestion for who might be regarded as the greatest long distance runner the world has ever seen. Follow this link to see why I thought Emil Zatopek may deserve that title …..Emil Zatopek – g.o.a.t? . However, although his tally of world records and Olympic achievements never came close to matching those of Zatopek, Britain’s Ron Hill is surely near the very top when there’s any discussion about running “greats”.
As I was growing up through the 1960s and early ’70s, almost every long distance race that was televised, or featured in sports reports seemed to include Ron Hill. In addition to his hugely successful running career, he is still well remembered today for the extraordinary sequence of consecutive days of running -every day for 52 years and 39 days from 1964 to 2017, tallying up around 160,000 miles. For most of this time his single minded routine was to run twice each day (only once on Sundays), and nothing – the ups and downs of everyday life, injury, illness, surgery, car crash – was enough to stop him. Here’s a great 3 minute clip showing a few big moments from his career:
Born on 25th September 1938, his greatest successes were achieved through the 1960s and early 1970s. In 1965, He set his first world record, clocking 1:15:22.6 for 25 kilometres beating Emil Zatopek’s previous mark by more than 1 minute; he also set another world record of 1:12:48.2 for 15 miles (24 km) along the way in the same race. He is credited with a world marathon best in 1970 with a time of 2hrs 09’28” (Derek Clayton had clocked 2hrs 08’33” in Antwerp the previous year, but this was disputed as being a short course). He also set world records for 10 miles – 47:02, Leicester, April 1968; then 46:44, Leicester, November 1968. He ran two Olympic Marathons – Tokyo in 1964 and Munich in 1972, but although medal success eluded him in the Olympics, he won gold medals in the marathon at the European championships in 1969 and the Commonwealth games in 1970. Also in 1970, he became the first Briton to win the world famous Boston Marathon in a course record 2:10:30. His name is still widely known due to the Ron Hill running gear company which he founded and developed in the 1970s.
These are the bare bones of his life though. To learn the full, highly detailed story of his life, his innovations in training, his incredibly prolific racing career and the formation of his business and much more, I would recommend his two part autobiography – entitled The Long Hard Road. Published in 1981 and 1982, I believe they may no longer be in print, but if you can track a copy down you’ll be well rewarded. The front covers are shown below:
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All the best – Kim
