Still Running (weakly). Issue 162

PAST – inspiration – “That’s a little brush with history.”  Bear with me while I tell you this story!!

The email newsletter, Essex Walker, has been very kind in publicising my book, The Run of Life, so I wanted to show my gratitude by offering 3 free copies of it to the newsletter’s readership, drawn at random. 

One of the lucky three was a gentleman called Tom Dooley, who lives in California.

What interested me even more was that Dooley had been an elite athlete, competing in the 20km race walk at the 1968 and 1972 Olympics, coming 17th and 15th respectively, and winning a silver medal in the 1971 Pan American Games 20km.  Interestingly, I can also find records of him competing in World Masters Championships and USATF Masters Championships, certainly up to 2024, including a 62:45 10km at the age of 74!

What is even more noteworthy is that his roommates in 1968 were none other than Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Lee Evans.  Smith and Carlos won gold and bronze in the 200, before displaying the famous Black Power Salute on the victory rostrum, something that got them banned from the Olympics for life.  Evans won 400 individual and 4x400 relay golds, both in world record times.

The USA managed a clean sweep in the 400, and Evans and his colleagues, Larry James and Ron Freeman, performed a rather more muted Black Power protest on the podium, which allowed them to continue their participation and partner with Vince Matthews (who would win individual gold in 1972) to win the relay gold.

In 1972 – keep up, keep up!! – Matthews and silver medallist, Wayne Collett, made their own protest, which got them banned, meaning that the US could not field a 4x400 team – denying Lee Evans another probable gold medal!

Tom Dooley has spoken about sharing a room with Smith, Carlos and Evans, as they debated exactly what they should do during the victory ceremony, recalling it as "crossroads of history" and describing Smith and Carlos as "legendary" runners who made an impact by protesting against racism and injustice in the United States.

He credits the experience with elevating his own perspective on sports, social upheaval and historical change.

PRESENT – perspiration –“It’s probably the most pain I’ve ever been in,” says Ben Pattison, my clubmate at Basingstoke and Mid Hants AC, of his 1000-700-600-400-300 off eight minutes session.

Ben, 24, won bronze medals at the 2022 Commonwealth and 2023 World Championships 800 metres, and is looking for more hardware this year at the Commonwealths in Glasgow in July and the Europeans in Birmingham in August.

I often think it is instructive for us distance runners to look at what 400 or 800 people are doing in training.  Ben does the above session on a Saturday – either that or 4x400 off 5 minutes (in 51, 52, 52, 52!)

It can seem to us plodders that these “sprinters” take an awful lot of recovery between efforts – until you try and do it yourself – and the 5 or 8 minutes rapidly disappears, leaving you with a lot of lactic in your legs and a lot of respect for these shorter distance exponents in your minds.

400 metres runner, Iwan Thomas’s book, Brutal, makes this clear.  He would complete something like, 500-400-300-200-100, “and I’m running all of those hard.  It’s not like I’m jogging the 5.  I’m coming through in 48 flat in the 500.”  And then he describes the aftermath: “I knew when I’d finished training, I’d be sick.  40 minutes later, I’d finally be able to get my kit back on and then have to walk 76 steps back up to my car [he always parked in the top car park at Southampton Sports Centre].  My legs would be screaming, but I knew that no one trained as hard as me.”

FUTURE – suggestion – Watching the Serpent 50km last weekend, run on trails between Petworth and Petersfield in West Sussex and Hampshire, I was reminded yet again of the inescapable truth of the unavoidable need for good, hard long runs.

One athlete, whom I know well, was hoping to take a chunk off her time from two years previously, and had trained in the searing heat of London streets and parks in recent weeks, running up to a marathon distance at faster than her target 50km pace.

Of course, training is one thing and racing is another, and it doesn’t take much to go wrong on the day for everything to unravel – a missed drink, unexpected blisters, a hill taken too quickly, a stile approached too confidently!

Luckily, nothing did interfere with this athlete’s performance, and, coming through the field magnificently in the second half, she did indeed take 33 minutes off her 2024 mark, looking untroubled throughout, finishing strongly and recovering well.

There is no shortcut to building this sort of fitness.  It is hard-won.  It means being out there for hours every weekend, going a bit further each time – with one eye on the pace to make sure that it is relevant to the target that you have in mind for the challenge to come.