Still Running (weakly). Issue 24

PAST – inspiration – Sadness filled the world of athletics on Thursday with news of the death of John Nuttall, aged just 56. John was a Commonwealth medallist in 1994 and Olympian two years later. He spent the last years of his life coaching in Doha. In 2014, he married Liz McColgan, the 1991 World 10,000 metres Champion and mother of Eilish.

John’s daughter, Hannah, from his first marriage to another GB athlete, Alison Wyeth, spoke of his influence as coach and father: “You achieved so many things throughout your life and will always be my role model. You were my voice of reason, my support system and my number one supporter in all aspects of my life.”

A lasting legacy from far too short a life.

PRESENT – perspiration – Ben Pattison won World Championship bronze in the 800 metres this summer. He happens to be a member of my club – Basingstoke and Mid Hants AC – and I was fortunate to be able to meet him to shake his hand and congratulate him at a club dinner at the end of the season.

What I had not appreciated was that he had heart surgery in 2020 to correct his Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which could push his heartrate as high as 246. He was advised to come back very tentatively after the operation, and his coach, Dave Ragan, did a great job in slowing him down. (He’s nicknamed “Fireball” by his teammates not just because of his red hair.)

Ranked only 10th in the UK in 2021, he made the Commonwealth podium in 2022, and then qualified for the 2023 Worlds at the last possible moment. Now his aim is Olympic gold in Paris 2024. Having already overcome so much, why not?

FUTURE – suggestion – Grete Waitz, the Norwegian who is my pick for the greatest female distance runner of all time (9-time New York City marathon winner, World Marathon Champion 1983, multiple World Cross-Country Champion), used a trick to get herself out of the door for freezing winter evening runs.

She would only do 9 miles on her morning run.

She knew that she would not be content with a single-digit day, so doing 9 would mean that she would get out for a second run in the evening.

William Sichel, a GB ultra international and cancer survivor, wore his GB vest to his chemotherapy sessions, bolstering his positive mental attitude by reminding himself what he wanted to get back to.

Tricks!

I have talked before about getting everything ready for my early morning run – to the extent of even placing my left sock to the left and right to the right – knowing that my willpower would be on a knife-edge at such an hour, with any obstacle likely to disempower me.

What tricks could you use to make your runs more likely to happen – and of more value when they do?