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

   

GO

Diaries and Log Books

It is quite evident that I was running before 1981 but that is the year that my running records begin.  Since I started those records I have maintained a hand-written log that estimates every mile covered.  I could never claim that it is accurate as I’ve only ever kept the record to the nearest 0.5 miles and my timing estimates must have been a bit off on several occasions.  Now, with the advent of Google maps combined with the buckeyeoutdoors.com training site [great site] or the iPhone sat-nav app that I use, I feel that my recorded accuracy is rather better.  It is, interestingly, quite close to my time based  estimates and there seems to be a reasonably even compensation between the over and under estimate values. This, of course, accepts that I believe in the accuracy of the technological aids

I’ve used buckeyeoutdoors  to record all my runs this year but I don’t want to let go of my paper records, so I still keep a hand-written log.  I feel that this log is an important part of my running, it helps to stimulate and maintain my interest.  Even those of us that can sit in the circle, give our names and admit to being addicted to running still need stimulants (I mean emotional stimuli here, not drugs, of course) to encourage us past the flat spots.

Let me return to the running story.  In May and June 1981 I was recording 40 - 60 miles per week.  I entered my first real road race on Sunday the 14th of June 1981: ‘The Fisherman’s 6’ at Brixham in Devon.  This is a coastal fishing town and I recall that it had some surprisingly steep hills.  My diary records that it was a very hot day and that I had a good run but my memory tells me that it was a sharp introduction into how competitive such events can be.  The following weekend I did the ‘Dartmoor North ~ South Run’; this was a cross-country event and Dartmoor has some difficult and energy sapping terrain.  My diary records that it was a 25 mile event but it took me 4 hours 30 minutes; I added the note “Stick to roads”, an interesting comment given that just 3 years later Dartmoor saw my most triumphant moment of running.

The events continued through the summer.  I took part in a 10,000 metre track event on the 16th of July...it was a huge field of 58 runners.  My recorded time was 39 mins 38 secs.  So there was some evidence of my speed improving.  I was never going to threaten the leaders at such events but I felt that I was learning more about the sport of running.

I had my first marathon in my sights.  Just a few years after the days when I considered such distances impossible for the average (and in my case, with running, rather below average) human I was going to take part in the 1981 Pony Marathon in Bolton in the North West of England.  

I have been very thankful over the years that my body has not sustained any significant or long-term running injuries but my diary reminds me that I did have some pain in my right knee in the month before my marathon debut.  I was determined to run that event, however, and drove up to Bolton for the weekend.  I broke the first cardinal rule by purchasing a new pair of running shorts for the race at the registration expo...but I seemed to get away with that on the day.   

I lined up on the morning of Sunday the 23rd of August 1981 with 8753 other entrants.  The results show that I finished 964th in a time of 3hrs 25mins 51secs (as well as my diaries I also have several scrapbooks and folders so there’s a lot of stuff for me to refer to).  I remember very well that I, like so many of us, set out far too quickly.  By 12 miles I was struggling and already into the run/walk rhythm that has got many middle-packers home over the years.  I found the energy to keep driving myself on and, again like so many, I remember the flood of emotion that hit me when I crossed the finish line.  Perhaps less common amongst runners, I can also recall lighting up a cigarette quite soon after I’d completed the run too.  It would be a couple of years before I had the determination to beat that particular demon.  My diary note for day was: “I done it!! (sic) - can do better - hard run”.  So I had thrown down the gauntlet to myself.

The Start of the 1981 Pony Marathon

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As I write this blog entry the sporting headlines in England are dominated by the allegations of cricketers fixing play in the recent England v Pakistan Test Series.  To many cricket is an arcane sport that moves at a beguilingly slow pace.  To others it is a wholly engaging spectacle as deeply considered tactics move the game through its phases.  I have, for many years, delighted in the sportsmanship that was at the core of the game.  There are umpires and they have to decide on many aspects of a match but the code, the spirit of the game meant that the players would often make those decisions ahead of the umpire having to intervene; if the batsman knew he’d nicked the ball when the keeper claimed a catch then he would walk from the crease, giving himself out.  If a fielder dived for a catch and claimed that he had caught it cleanly then his word would be accepted, no requirement for scrutiny by television replay from 4 angles.  Now, I fear, those gestures are less commonplace and the game is the worse for it, in my opinion, although it seems that confrontation and argument makes for better viewing in the judgement of many who control our media.  

The betting scandal...and it’s not the first in cricket...is another sorry reflection on the corrosive effects of short-term monetary gain.  I feel that the  money involved in most sport at the professional level has had a largely negative effect on the pastimes that so many of us enjoyed watching and participating in. This is one of the reasons that I still draw pleasure from running...and here I have, with regret, to differentiate between running and athletics, there have been too many drugs cheats in athletics for me to be able to watch that beautiful sport without a disturbing uncertainty.  Running, ordinary folk just getting out alone or together, with all but the very few having any prospect of winning the prizes seems to me to be truer to the ideal of exercise forming part of a complete and sustaining lifestyle than being disappointed again by seeing those with wonderful sporting gifts and abilities squander so much for what, in the end, will give them so little satisfaction.    

Two footnotes:  Firstly, I have used the male gender when writing about cricket here but I acknowledge that there have, for very many years, been excellent female cricketers too.  Secondly, my son plays a lot of cricket for a village side here in Somerset, England.  It is a continuing pleasure in the game played at this level that the batting team will often furnish both umpires for their own innings and yet decisions of those umpires are accepted by the fielding side as the final ruling.  

SET

Early Struggles

Much of the early part of my running life is linked to my time in the Royal Navy, I guess that that would be inevitable when the greater part of your professional career has been given over to military service.

So to my first attempt to gain a commission.  The Admiralty Interview Board felt that I didn’t have the academic wherewithal to study to degree level and so I signed up for a 1 year course for a HNC in mechanical engineering at Yeovil College.

My physical preparation for the leadership course that I spoke about previously had triggered a desire in me to improve and maintain my fitness.  Having struggled to run at all before this time I now found that getting out on the road was something I looked forward to, albeit my running was on an ad hoc basis.   

I presented myself to  Admiralty Interview Board again in 1977 and this time they took a chance on me but I was advised that I would have to join the Upper Yardman unit at HMS Caledonia in Fife, Scotland.  The posting would be for 18 months during which time I would be required to study A-levels to better prepare me for my degree studies.

Always Active in the Upper Yardman Unit

This was a hugely significant time for me.  The Upper Yardman Unit was a very small set up with 4 Instructor Officers charged with teaching between 12 and 20 or so young men like myself seeking to improve their academic ability ahead of officer training.  The reason for the significance of the unit was that I found myself immersed in a culture of making things happen.  Everyone there was highly motivated and full of enthusiasm.  This energy inevitably expressed itself in sport and alongside my newly found keenness for running I became involved in squash, volleyball, badminton, soccer and even rugby and skateboarding.  I learned to sail in both dinghies and beautiful 55‘ Nicholson yachts.  And I discovered my passion for skiing...particularly racing Giant Slalom.

My running was the  slender backbone from which the other sports grew.  My training was still quite haphazard, with no structure or plan.  I simply ran as far as time allowed, usually around 3 miles.  There was no great variation, no intervals, no stretching just out, run, stop, shower. There was, however, a weekly run at HMS Caledonia known as the “YOT race”.  It took place a lunchtime on Mondays, as I recall, and covered 3 miles with a handicapped start time based on previous runs that aimed to get all participants to the finnish at much the same time.  

I gained the A-level qualifications I need and then, in 1979, undertook my initial officer training at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth.  More physical training, which included running around the very hilly locality.  

Just before moving on to the Royal Naval Engineering College (RNEC) at Manadon in Plymouth I served in HMS Bulwark, an aging aircraft carrier.  The significance of this three month trip was that it saw me enter my first recorded race...the Rock Race in Gibraltar.  This is a recognized challenge for the ship’s company of any visiting naval vessel.  It’s a gruelling climb from the dockyard to the summit of the Rock, although it’s only about 3 miles the ascent is around 1300 feet and the certificate I have shows a time of  32 minutes and 33 seconds.

During a weekend with my parents in Newmarket I went to Millets, a venerable sports shop in Cambridge and purchased my first pair of running shoes...they were made by Karhu, a Finnish brand (I was delighted to see on the web that the company still sells running shoes with the trademark M logo).  I knew nothing about running gear in those early days but I was drawn to a company from that part of the world which has always had a somewhat mystical sense about it (yes, I think a skeptic can have a sense of the mystical...at the very least the ‘not known’).  Putting on those running shoes was a delight and I quickly found myself running up to 6 miles and then beyond.

It was in September 1980 that I joined RNEC and began reading my first degree. It was also at this time that my running became a a more structured component of my life.

I don’t have an accurate record of my running until 1981 when my running diaries commenced but I did record that I ran 765 miles in my Karhu shoes.  I then bought a pair of Nike and a pair of Reebok running shoes but I wasn’t recording the models at that time.  My next shoes were, however, legends in my running history...the magnificent New Balance (420s I think).  I still didn’t know anything about running kit but I was attracted by the name ‘New Balance’ and, even then, I liked that I could buy a pair of shoes that were made in, or close to, the country I was running in. Why were those shoes so special...because they sustained my running  through 2500 miles.  They were extraordinary and I’ve never found anything that has got close to matching them.

My daily running diaries commenced on Friday the 1st of May 1981 although I had recorded some weekly totals before then.  My mileages were climbing; my road races and cross country events were about to start in ernest.

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So what is my take on skeptic (I like this spelling) thinking?  I try not just to take a contrary view point.  I like to have evidence that I can understand and where that evidence is beyond my intellectual grasp I like to listen to counter arguments and determine my thinking as well as I am able.  I find cynicism rather too easy to slip into but it makes me uncomfortable because it doesn’t feel like a laudable or helpful trait; I try to take a balanced view. I am familiar with many of the techniques that seek to persuade me to certain action and I have an absolute distrust of any hint of a ‘free lunch’.  My experiences in life lead me to have much greater faith in the ‘cock-up’ than the ‘conspiracy’ theory. 

I tend towards an atheist view but rather prefer the militant agnostic stance of I don’t know and neither do you.  My approach to this life is that it is the one life that we know we have and I seek to live it as well as I can.  Those who know me will testify, I’m sure, that I have failed in that stated aim on numerous occasions but I continue to try.  

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Running this week has gone pretty well, these were the highlights: a run of almost 10 miles on Tuesday and a very enjoyable run with Ed (my son) and Ade (almost my son-in-law) over 5 miles on Wednesday.  

I record my full training log as ‘Blackbike’ on www.buckeyeoutdoors.com which is a great site and highly commended.  I’m closing in on my challenge of 1000 miles in 2010. 

TAKE YOUR MARK ~ 19th August 2010

The young apprentice joins the Royal Navy

So it seems that I am coming to blogging in much the same way I came to running...a little later than many.  I have felt a desire to be part of the Run Net Community for some time though and, whilst I’m not sure that I have the time to create a podcast of good enough quality, I do feel that I could recall my running life by way of this autobiographical blog.

The first key date would be the 4th of September 1970, the day I joined the Royal Navy.  I was 16 years old.  I had enjoyed ‘kick and run’ sport as a kid but never played to any standard and following the onset of rather asthmatic hay-fever from the age of 12, I tended to avoid the sports pitch. I abhorred cross-country running, which invariably took us across the grounds of Newmarket heath.  I struggled to finish and was always in the last half dozen.

The Royal Navy expected some physical effort but not too much.  There were various assault course activities and sports afternoons to take part in as well as the physical training element of my initial training but nothing that was too taxing.

And so I trundled through the first few years of my Service career, qualified as an aircraft artificer and was drafted to the Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton in Somerset.  It was here that I married Olwen in 1975 and we set up our first home at the caravan park just off the air station.  On the horizon was the POLC (Petty Officers’ Leadership Course), which was a six week course held at Corsham near Bath.  I knew that the course had a 1, 3 and 5 mile run in it as well as other physical challenges, including the assault course, the Cliff & Chasm Run and a 36 hour hike over The Brecons in Wales. Chill reality struck me.  I hadn’t done any serious exercise...ever; I smoked and I was inclined to carry too much weight.  I had to make some sort of effort to prepare myself for the course.

The course on the POLC.  I am 5th from
the left in the centre row

From the caravan park I knew there was a short road loop of about two miles that  I felt I could tackle.  I had a pair of old soccer trainers and some rudimentary sports kit so I set out...wheezing and blowing.  I don’t remember much about those early few runs although I can recall thinking about marathon runners; I would imagine the feeling of running into the stadium for that last lap of the track after 26 miles.  I couldn’t really countenance the thought of running for 26 miles, it seemed like an impossibility for mere mortals, and yet I could fantasize about that roaring crowd...the cool of the tunnel between the road and the track.  It was a vivid image but utterly dream-like in my belief that I would ever run that ridiculous distance.

I have no idea of my time or pace and I simply recall doing that run a few times in preparation for the leadership course, which I attended during the summer of 1976 - a particularly memorable year as it was a very hot, long summer.

Looking back at the report from that course I’m pleased to see that it noted  “He was already quite fit when he arrived and he has played a full part in all physical activities and achieved a good standard”. I certainly remember my immense pride in completing all of the measured runs (well ahead of the last half dozen), as well as being part of a team that set a top ten time for the Cliff & Chasm Run.  

The course, and my albeit meagre preparations, were a springboard.  I had enjoyed the physical challenges, participated in all the team sports that formed part of the course and exceeded my expectations.

My next challenge was to sit the Admiralty Interview Board as I sought to gain a commission.   

There is an addendum to this first part of the story, which tells a little more about my journey through life.  It was whilst I was on the leadership course that I became convinced that religion held no thrall for me; I could not sustain a belief in a supernatural power.  My rather watery Church of England upbringing had never convinced me and I was suddenly struck by the stark realization that, for me, this was it, this was the one life I was going to have.  It was a lonely moment, I have since characterized it as being like the cartoon image of Tom running over the edge of a cliff, he looks down and sees nothing below him and scrambles to recover his grip on the cliff.  Once I had calmed down, however, I decided that there was no need to try to regain my place on the cliff, it was ok, this is a wonderful life and it’s much better to live it well in all possible senses. My belief has remained consistent since that day.

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Today’s run was 8.12 miles on the roads of Somerset.  Very pleasant if a bit overcast.  I was listening to a podcast by Steve Chopper.