Still Running (weakly). Issue 152

PAST – inspiration – I crossed the finish line of the 2003 London Marathon, having run a 3:27.  Someone had chalked up a sign that read, “PAULA 2:15:25.”  I can remember looking around at my fellow runners and pointing to that sign.  We all just shook our heads.  Paula had taken women’s marathon running to a whole new level.

The next year, 2004, her training showed her to be about 2 minutes faster than the year before, heralding the possibility of a 2:13, a time that would easily compete with the best of today – especially if Paula had worn Vaporflys or equivalent!

However, she got injured in the run-up in the Athens Olympics of that year and had to take high doses of anti-inflammatories.  These hindered her stomach’s food absorption, meaning that she started the Olympic marathon effectively with no fuel inside her.  She had to pull out at 22 miles.

But her 2:15:25 remains a barrier breaker, comparable in my mind only with Haile Gebrselassie’s 12:44.39 in Zurich in 1995 to take 11 seconds from Moses Kiptanui’s existing record.  (The Kenyan, Kiptanui, said of the Ethiopian, “Oh, he’s pretty fit at the moment!”)  Or perhaps Bob Beamon.  Or Ron Clarke breaking his own 10,000 record of 28:15.6 with 27:39.4 in Oslo in 1965.    

PRESENT – perspiration – From a purely selfish point of view, watching the London Marathon at 17 miles last Sunday inspired me and deflated me in equal measure.  (Let me make it absolutely clear that this feeling of deflation has nothing to do with any doubts about doping with Sabastian Sawe: he and Adidas pay to get him tested more frequently than any other runner.)

Obviously, it inspired me.  I never thought I’d live to see a sub-2.  I remember Ron Hill, who knew something about marathon running, being the second man under 2:10, saying that the 2-hour barrier would never be broken, that he knew how hard he had worked for his 2:09:28 in 1970 and no one could ever take 10 minutes off that.

And yet here we are.

So why am I deflated?  After all, I have been hugely inspired and energised by barrier breakers in my 55 years of watching athletics.  There was Dave Bedford’s 27:30.8, Geoff Capes going over 70 feet, Big Bren’s 3000 at Gateshead, Raul Gonzalez taking the 50km walk from 3:52:45 to 3:41:20, Henry Rono, Coe and Ovett swapping records, Zola, Daley, Haile, Jonathan Edwards in 1995, Paula, Jess, Mo, Mondo!  All these and so many more have given me the impetus to get out of the door one more time.

So, again, why this deflation? 

I can only attempt to explain it this way.  I have written about the feeling I had watching Vaatainen and Haase contest the last lap of the European 10,000 in 1971.  It was the most remarkable thing I had ever seen, and it was that experience that started me running.  I went outside the house that night and ran up and down the nearest hill, trying to join their world of speed and endurance and athleticism and pain.  The gulf between them and me was huge, perhaps unbridgeable, but I felt that, by that act of hilly homage, I had maybe closed it a tiny little bit.

And I have spent the last 50-odd years trying to close it a bit more.

By those efforts I felt that I at least inhabited the same universe, that I was of the same species, as the Finn and the East German.

I can only think that the deflation I feel now is in fact the feeling of that gap rewidening!  That Sabastian Sawe is a different animal.  After all, just to throw one stat at you, his 10km from 30 to 40 was 27:36, faster than Juha Vaatainen’s 27:52.78 in that 1971 race, and a time that would have beaten the TRACK world record until Bedford did 27:30 in 1973!!

Kenny Moore talked of watching the top US milers pass by and thinking, at the age of 12, “They were so impressive that they struck me as somehow unnatural or mystical.  There seemed a magical dimension separating the straining yet serene milers from the wondering boy…… I sensed that what I was watching was not learnable.  [They] were so talented that they seemed to differ, not in degree but in kind, from ordinary, fatigue-prone mortals.”

Moore went on to place fourth in the 1972 Olympic Marathon, so clearly he did learn something, but his feeling of separation is one with which I can certainly identify.

Maybe my deflation is akin to Lynn Davies’s reaction to that jump of Bob Beamon’s at the Mexico City Olympics of 1968.  Davies was reigning champion, but when Beamon beat the world record by nearly two feet with the first legal jump of the competition, Davies knew he could not win.  Beamon’s jump, he said, was from, “a different world.”

Part of my feeling of deflation of course is down to my present decrepit condition, which meant that MY marathon on Sunday was trying to get up and down the steps on the underground in one piece!

As I said, this is a very self-indulgent reaction, and I suppose I am articulating it now to get it out there, to try and set it aside, and to use its crystallisation as a way of turning it from a demoralising gut-punch to an inspiring prod.

I have a long way to go to even feel that I am part of the running world again, so we will see!

FUTURE – suggestion – Watching those marathon runners on Sunday reminded me once again that, whilst most of the preparation for the race is physical, so much of its execution is mental.

Getting the best out of yourself over 26.2 miles requires a constant process of biofeedback.  Rather than tuning out, to my way of thinking, you should be tuning in to exactly how you are feeling.

How far have I come?  How far have I got to go?  How am I doing against my goal or goals?  How is each part of my body – quads, hamstrings, calves, hips, feet, upper body?  How is my breathing?  Do I have any issues with clothing or shoes?  Have I drunk enough?  When should I drink next?  What does the next part of the course challenge me with?  Could I work a little harder?  Should I back off?  If I make an effort now, will I have enough to finish in good shape?  Am I near enough to the finish to go for it, and get a better result than if I keep my pace as it is now?  In short, given where I am now, how do I get the best possible result out of my body?

To deploy all of the fitness that you have accrued in your training in exactly the right measure across 26.2 miles – or anything between 2 to 7 hours – is incredibly difficult.