Still Running (weakly). Issue 101

PAST – inspiration –“The crowd loved me, (because) I wasn’t like the big, muscular eastern bloc athletes,” said Thelma Hopkins, after professing herself disappointed to have come only fourth in the high jump at the 1952 Olympics when she was just 16.

The slight, 5ft 5in ‘pocket projectile,’ who died on 10th January this year aged 88, made up for it in the years to come, however, winning high jump gold at both Commonwealth (Empire!) and European Championships in 1954 – plus a remarkable silver in the Commonwealth long jump – setting a world record of 1.74 in Belfast in 1956, before winning Olympic silver in Melbourne that year.  She also represented Ireland at hockey 42 times.

Her remarkable spring was evident from an early age, most noticeably when she cleared long jump pit at Victoria College, landing on the grass at the far end.  The only other athlete I have heard of doing that was Steve Ovett!  I think it’s called natural talent!

EVER-PRESENT – perspiration – Among the athletes that Hopkins beat to set the world record in 1956 was 16-year-old Mary Peters, who called her “my inspiration.”  Peters of course went on to win the Olympic pentathlon in 1972.  Runner’s World reckoned her switch to the Fosbury Flop high jump technique a year before gained her 100 points – as she used it to clear 1.82 – and she won in Munich by just 10 points over the five events!  Hopkins had never seen the flop, invented some years after her retirement by 1968 Olympic champ Dick Fosbury.

This year is the 50th anniversary of Peters’s eponymous charitable trust.  There is a statue of her beside the Belfast track where it is based.  The council originally only gave enough money for her upper half to be sculpted, but after protests (“My legs did all the running and jumping”), more funds were found.  Peters then felt that her bum looked too big, so it went back to the sculptor.  “Now it’s perfect,” she said.

Mary Peters won BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1972, the year after Princess Anne.  On receiving the trophy live on TV, the athlete exclaimed, “Ooooh, hasn’t she kept it nice?”!   

FUTURE – suggestion – And talking of spring, have you thought about incorporating plyometrics into your training?  What are plyometrics?  They are explosive movements, such as jumps, hops, bounds and skipping.  Why should you do them?  Because plyometric exercises improve your speed, strength, power, ability to change direction, balance, running economy and bone density!

They are comparatively quick and easy to do, and will add an important extra dimension to your speed, endurance and speed-endurance training.  There are so many examples online that I won’t bother to go into the details of the movements here.

Need more convincing?  Seb Coe did them and, for a comparatively slight middle-distance athlete, he was renowned for his kick and general power.  And recently, dismayed at the sad absence of anything remotely resembling spring in my legs, I have started doing them.  I started with some rather impressive springs onto a 6-inch box!  By contrast, my son can do 47-inch box jumps.  Git!

And if they’re good enough for a double Olympic 1500 champion and a washed-up, 67-year-old ex-ultrarunner, shouldn’t you at least consider trying them?