Still Running (weakly). Issue 06

PAST – inspiration – After the joy of the Giro, the trauma of the Tour. Mark Cavendish, the “Manx Missile” cyclist, is retiring at the end of this season. He won the last stage of the Giro d’Italia, but had to abandon in the Tour de France with a broken collar bone, meaning there is no fairy tale ending to his career.

He is currently tied on 34 Tour stage wins with the great Eddy Merckx, and was looking to take sole possession of that record. It was not to be. This reminded me of Don Bradman, the cricketer with the highest ever batting average. Walking out to bat at the Oval in 1948, he needed just four runs in his final innings to claim a career average of 100. He was out second ball for a duck, ending on 99.94. But his greatness can be clearly grasped when one realises that the next highest average is 61.87.

And that reminds me of Brian Patten’s poem, “And nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be.”

PRESENT – perspiration – Zharnel Hughes has done some perspiring recently. On 24th June in New York, the sprinter broke Linford Christie’s 30-year-old British 100 metres record of 9.87, with 9.83. Last weekend, he completed a rare 100/200 double at the UK Championships in Manchester, running 19.77 for the longer event, which would also have been a UK record but for a slightly too strong following wind.

Hughes credits training under Usain Bolt’s coach, Glenn Mills, in Jamaica, for his improvement. His diet is better there, and he is training harder than ever. One particularly brutal session of 300 metres repetitions saw him needing medical attention! There is this thing called “cause and effect” in sport: you work a bit harder; you get a bit better!

FUTURE – suggestion – I started my training diary on 8th July 1973, so, 50 years later, I found last week that I had covered 132,709.5 miles in that time, 50.869 miles per week. A training diary is an essential. Oscar Wilde said that he never travelled without his diary, because, “One should always have something sensational to read on the train.” For runners, it’s more about motivation and perspective than sensation. A diary shows us how far we have come, how much we have improved, giving us the inspiration to go further. My number one piece of advice to any runner would be, have a target, and keep a diary to plot your march towards it. Plot the cause; record the effect!