Off & Running

So why am I writing this blog; there might be 5 people reading it.  I guess that one cannot ignore the simple self-indulgence of writing down ones thoughts and memories; it is a pleasurable way to record part of the biography of a life.  Maybe one or two people will draw some sort inspiration from it.  It enables me to develop my style in writing.  Perhaps the most important aspect for me is that I now feel I am more of a contributor to the Run Net Community.

I don’t know where the ‘new media‘ path will lead in terms of our communication but I sincerely hope that it will contribute to the breaking down of barriers between humans that still seem to be prevalent across our world.

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It was exactly four weeks after the Pony Marathon that I toed the line...as best one can at a mass participation marathon...again.  This was the 1981 Interplas Marathon in Birmingham.  I completed the course in 3hrs 15mins, with a diary comment of ‘Much better”.  

After the Interplas

Four weeks later again, and amidst quite a busy cross country season, I took part in the Honiton Marathon in Devon; the time came down again to 3hrs 10mins 30secs.  

My training was still quite un-informed.  I’d read Jim Fixx’s book and The Runner’s Handbook  by  Bob Glover and Jack Shepherd but I was still tending to just run at every opportunity, which mainly consisted of running to and from college (5 miles by the shortest route).  These were halcyon days of fitness.  A diary entry records, for example, “Ran to college, played 5-a-side football, ran home: 10 miles”).  

My training carried on well though the Christmas break and it was in February 1982 that I took part in the Seven Sisters Marathon, a cross country event that starts and ends at Eastborne on the south coast of England. More specifically it started up a very steep, grassy slope and finished over a series of cliff edge hills, the eponymous Seven Sisters, one of which is Beachy Head, sadly well known as a site for suicide jumps (so much so that volunteers are often there to talk with, and hopefully dissuade, potential jumpers). 

The Uphill Start

I remember this being a tough event but with some notable features.  Firstly, the runners set off some time after the walking entrants and I can still picture the rows of boots outside the pub door as the walkers took on their liquids...seems to me that that’s not a bad approach.  Secondly, we were all given a large chunk of fruit cake at the base of one of the later climbs (22.5 miles); the sensation of that chewy lump of cake becoming concrete-like in my dry mouth still remain a startlingly vivid memory.  I recorded a time of 3hrs 31mins and finished 11th out of 150 entrants.         

Closing stages of Wolverhampton

It was on Sunday the 28th of March 1982 that my marathon time fell below 3 hours for the first time. The Wolverhampton Marathon, which I ran with my friend Chris Windley.  I found my flow and my recorded time was 2 hrs 52 mins 25 secs.

My diary recalls a rather more significant event around this time though.  I returned to my family home in Exning, a small village near Newmarket, and there I ran with both my mother and my father.  Dad had been a long time smoker but he was stick-thin and had been a useful 400 yds runner in his school days.  It was a joy to run with him but Mum’s achievement was, perhaps, the greater.  She was hard working and stoic in her character, she would never have thought herself a runner but with gentle encouragement, starting out with very small increments, she was now joining me on a 5 mile run.

The next chronological event was my move into ultra distance running but I’ll leave that for my next posting.  I just want to skip forward here to Sunday the 18th of July 1982.  The Cambridge Half-Marathon.  I was a little disappointed by my time of 84 minutes but I was elated to be able to record that Mum, at 49 years of age and within months of starting to run, finished the same event in a time of 1hr 58 Mins. She grew to love running and was hugely disappointed when unremitting knee pain forced her to stop before she could tackle a full marathon although she went on to play tennis until, sadly, she was diagnosed with cancer and died in 1997. I still miss her. 

Mum and Me, very happy after the Cambridge Half