Still Running (weakly). Issue 108

PAST – inspiration – You either break 60 minutes for 10 miles or you don’t.  You either complete a parkrun without walking or you don’t.  You either get an Olympic gold or you don’t.

I’ve said it many times before: running, for those of us who set ourselves targets, is a pretty unforgiving, black-and-white, binary pursuit.  And that characteristic is – in equal measure – very motivating and bloody intimidating.  It’s simple – you either achieved that long-sought goal – or you didn’t.  There’s no grey area.

Although I do recall some people trying to muddy the water here, to cheat their way across the divide.  Forgive me if I am being pretty pedantic!  (“That’s not like you, Steve!”)

Grete Waitz won the New York City Marathon a staggering 9 times.  When she helped race founder and director, Fred Lebow, round in 1992, in a very emotional run that you can experience on YouTube (he was dying of cancer) it was called her 10th NYC win.

Let me stress: she did not claim this; others did on her behalf.  10 wins – people want things to be too neat, and life is not like that.  Because it’s not true.  She did not win that race – though the humanity she showed to the man who had inspired her interest in the marathon in the first place, was perhaps worthy of, if not another New York gold, then perhaps a Nobel Prize.

More water being muddied………. When Mo Farah won the Olympic 5000 in 2012 – to add to his 10,000 triumph seven days earlier – co-commentators called Steve Cram’s last-lap words, “gold medal commentary.”  I detect behind that praise was the fact that Cram, for all his world records and domination of the 1500 in 1982-3 and 85-6, never won Olympic gold – 8th in 1980, silver in 84, fourth in 88.  And he did not win a gold medal in 2012 either!

Sorry to be brutal – but running is like that.  Strive for that black-and-white gold!

PRESENT – perspiration – Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way.  There can be happy endings.  Frustration can turn to triumph.  Failure to success.

A montage of Olympic photos from SportsWorld magazine in 1972 included a picture chosen to symbolise failure.  It shows Pole Tadeusz Ślusarski bombing out of the pole vault competition at any early stage.  But – happy ending – four years later, he won gold!

Kath Grainger famously won silver in Sydney 2000, silver in Athens 2004, silver in Beijing 2008, before finally winning gold in London 2012.

George Eastham never won a major honour until the League Cup final of 1972, when he scored the winning goal in Stoke City’s 2-1 win over Chelsea.  “The old man has done it,” said the commentator.  He was, at 35 years and 161 days, the oldest man ever to receive a winner’s medal.

FUTURE – suggestion – And so I say to you – in my best pompous voice – keep trying, keep running, keep striving. 

It was my dearest wish to represent Croydon Schools at the long jump or triple jump.  All through my secondary years, I was third with the first two qualifying, or fourth with the first three taken.  Finally, in my last year, I received that longed-for call-up.

Later, at university, I thought I ought to be able to get a medal in the Universities Athletics Union 3,000 metres walk.  After all, not many cool students did something as uncool as race walking.  First year – fifth.  Second year – sixth.  Finally, third year – silver!

Success, as Paul McCartney might have sung, “……doesn’t come in a minute.  Sometimes it doesn’t come at all.”

But keep the faith – and you never know!