Still Running (weakly). Issue 91

PAST – inspiration – “I don’t run 150 miles a week just to be the best in Canada. If I just wanted to be the best in Canada, I’d run only 75-80 miles a week and be satisfied with that.” So said Jerome Drayton to the ambulance attendant who was trying to comfort him after he had to drop out of the 1970 Commonwealth Marathon.

Drayton, who died on 10th February this year, held the Canadian marathon record of 2:10:09 for 43 years from 1975 to 2018, probably a record gap. (He actually held it with different times from 1969 onwards!)

He was one of the 3 or 4 best marathoners in the world in the 70s, winning Fukuoka in 1969, 75 and 76, when the Japanese race was the highest-quality marathon in the world. (This was before New York, the first of the big city marathons, took off.) He also won Boston in 1977 and achieved a silver medal in the 1978 Commonwealth Marathon. RIP Jerome.

PRESENT – perspiration – “If you’re thinking about running a marathon, you need to have the passion first. If you’re going to spend hours-upon-hours every week training and be very, very tired, you’d want to love it,” says Steve Moneghetti, one of my favourite runners.

An Australian born in 1962, he won Commonwealth Marathon bronze, silver and gold in 1986, 1990 and 1994 respectively, conducting the fastest ever post-marathon interview after the last, literally within seconds of finishing. He also won 10,000 metres bronze in 1998.

His CV, though, lacked a global medal, a gap he plugged in 1997 by taking the World Championship bronze on the ‘original’ course from the village of Marathon to the ancient Olympic stadium in Athens.

Present though? Yes, he is still competing, setting a world 60-65 5km record of 15:52.9 at the end of 2022.

FUTURE – suggestion – Mind the gap. My number one piece of advice – apart from having a target and not running with scissors in your hand – would be to mind the gap. Well, at least three kinds of gap actually……..

1. The 72-hour gap: that is, please take two clear easy days between really hard days. The latter are long, hard runs or eyeballs-out interval, tempo or hill sessions. You may be able to get away with 48 hours, but 72 gives you more physical and mental/emotional respite.

2. The discipline gap: talking of your interval sessions, the amount of rest or jogging you take between the efforts is at least as important as their length, their number and their speed. Many times I have been flabbergasted – in the immortal words of Frankie Howerd, “never has my flabber been more gasted” – at the ill-discipline of athletes in this regard. There is a world of difference between, say, 6 times 600 metres at your 3km pace with a strict 200-metre jog between each, and 6 times 600m at your 3km pace with an indeterminant rest, during which you check your phone, chat to friends and chug some water.

3. The zero gap: your long runs should be continuous, so that they most closely replicate the fatigue that you will experience during the race itself. This is particularly true of your marathon long runs but should be applied across the board. The value of your long run is hugely diluted if it includes stops for drinks or food or tying your shoelaces or checking your phone (again!) or anything else that your ‘begging-for-downtime’ brain can conjure up. What your run gives you hinges on your not giving in to that voice!

Don’t fall into the trap of not minding the gap!