Still Running (weakly). Issue 169

PAST – inspiration – “Yeah.  As long as you don’t rev it up too much,” joked the caretaker at Brands Hatch.  I had cycled down to the famous motor racing circuit on my way home from London to Croydon and asked this gentleman’s permission to have a ride round.

You see, I was training for the Quadrathon – 2-mile sea swim, 50km race walk, 100-mile bike and marathon run – and I needed to see where most of my weakest event (the cycle) would be taking place.

After the swim at Brighton, we would walk to Tunbridge Wells, before cycling to and round (and round and round) Brands, before finally running to, appropriately enough, Gravesend!

About two-thirds of the bike leg would take place there and I needed to get the lie of the land.  I had heard horror stories about the steepness of Druids: indeed, the first time up there, I had to get off and walk, before making better and more timely gear selections on subsequent laps.

In the race itself, it was at Brands Hatch that my mate, Mick, would shout, “Another great lap,” at me each time round.  It was here that pre-race favourite, John Hills, had to have frequent cuddles with his girlfriend in order to keep going – “Pathetic,” judged another of my handlers, Rod.

It was here that each competitor was subjected to a 15-minute medical to make sure they were safe to carry on.  It was here that Mick and Rob fell asleep in Rod’s car with the radio on, draining the battery, so that when I left the circuit for the run, they had to jump-start it and catch me up several miles later.

And it was here that, jogging down the hill from Brands on the first mile of the marathon, and seeing another competitor cycling painfully up it to start his 50 laps of the circuit, I, knowing what lay ahead for him, could not help but mutter to myself, “Poor bastard!”

PRESENT – perspiration – “I live in Norfolk and there are not many hills, so I drove up to Birmingham every Sunday to run round the course here,” said Natasha Wilson, fifth in the European Championship marathon, underlining something of the sacrifice that it takes to be competitive at that level.

That and the 100 to 120 miles a week of running, plus 4-5 hours of cross-training, 3-4 hours in the gym, plus physio and recovery!

Natasha’s weekly pilgrimage reminds me of my mate Don’s three-hour drive from Hampshire’s gentle but inadequate gradients to the Brecon Beacons to train on hills with the requisite amount of continuous vert!

Places can be very important.  Apart from their being appropriate in terms of familiarisation (Brands Hatch for me, Birmingham for Natasha Wilson) or type of terrain (Brecon for Don), I believe that certain places can also be magical – and thus inspiring – even if you just visit them.

When I first went to Helsinki for work, I headed to the Olympic stadium.  That was where Emil Zatopek had won his three Olympic golds in 1952; it was where Vaatainen and Haase had fought out that European 10,000 that got me running in the first place in 1971; and it was where Eamonn Coghlan won a memorable 5000 at the 1983 Worlds, celebrating his win with clenched fists and a heavenward glance even before he passed the Russian who was leading.

I stood in the stand; I jogged round the track; and I could feel the ghosts of those great runners of the past.

The Berlin Olympic stadium held a similar magic.  Here it was that Jesse Owens won four Olympic golds in 1936 of course, and where Usain Bolt set the still-standing 100 and 200 records in the World Championships of 2009.

The blue track was state-of-the-art and contrasted starkly with the grim stoney 1930s architecture of the outer stadium, a grimness only exacerbated by the ghastly, ghostly presence of Hitler, Goring, Goebbels and Hess.

FUTURE – suggestion – Most of the time you will train in the places most convenient to you – the roads where you live, the nearest track, the local gym.

Doing so, you will know your favourite stretches of road or patches of woods, where for some reason you will always feel more comfortable and at times find yourself flying.

Occasionally, though, it is good to consider going somewhere different – this will usually be to make yourself work harder than ever.  In this regard, hills seem to feature particularly strongly.

Downsview Road in Upper Norwood was one such place.  It’s a uniformly steep (1 in 10) hill of about 450 metres, so that to sprint up it – either running or race walking – incurred some serious lactic.  But very rarely – perhaps twice in my six years there – I was able fly up it and know that I was ready for anything.  If Strava had been invented back then, I think I’d have had a pretty good shot at being King of the Mountain on that particular segment!

Then there was Spout Hill on the other side of Croydon, a lovely quiet residential road, that snaked upwards for about the same length, but which we used to tackle in the middle of a 10-mile walk.  It was said that Ronnie Corbett lived on that road, but there was nothing funny about racing your mates up it, eyeballs out, every Tuesday night.

And ‘The Hill’ at Birmingham University, on which generations of runners have developed their leg strength and speed endurance.  Its gentle slope and tree-lined avenues may not look too intimidating, but it has seen the likes of Andy Holden (British steeplechase record in 1972), Ray Smedley (1976 European Indoor 3000 bronze), Roger Hackney (1986 Commonwealth steeplechase silver) and much lower down in the pantheon, your correspondent, cowering, quaking and collapsing.

You don’t have to go to a special place to do a great session, but sometimes going to a special place outside you, can help you to go to a special place inside.