This isn't working ... no surprise there

Second week into my new training regime: good news was managing four runs in the week and completing the mob match distance of 8 miles. Bad news is that the latter was achieved only by adding all four runs together! Yes, 4 x 15 minutes was the sum of my work, which sounds like a good Saturday tempo session but of course was far from it. A couple of lunchtime potters around the lakes in Fairford and two runs on the soft, smooth grass at the Agri College was the extent of my exercise and it was purgatory.

However, some good news comes with the loss of 2lbs, although this is probably a timing issue as my waist is still screaming blue murder every time I try to put on a pair of 32" trousers. Any weight loss will be as a result of no alcohol so far in 2010; cakes, chips and chocolate are also taking a back seat right now.

Add to all that woe, I'm offloading my beloved MG after four years of blissful driving, although thankfully not Claudie and mother-in-law also in the picture. At least it should ensure a long hot summer this year.

Miles: 8. Weight: 13st 0lb (82kg).
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End of the Road

Six months since injury stopped me running, eight months since it first manifested itself, there is no improvement and I'm somehow doubting that I'll ever get back. I've decided that I want to do the Blackheath mob match in Richmond Park next month to tidy up the season, meet a few friends, have a beer, stay for a meal and then stop running. To do that I have to generate sufficient fitness to grind my way through 7½ miles. That will be difficult but I'll record my efforts in this blog as it will at least focus my mind.

I'm seeing the specialist again in a couple of weeks but know he'll have nothing new to tell me.

Ok so I started last week. This was mainly because of the snow; I love running in the white stuff when it's fresh and couldn't resist getting out there. Drove up to Deer Park school and did three figure of eight loops in pristine virgin snow, it was beautiful. A single 4WD vehicle had driven along part of the field and I jogged in the tracks; for the rest I just ran through the light, fluffy snow. Two miles was the result. It's a mighty effort deciding on going out, changing, driving to the run & back, showering and changing all for 15 minutes of futile jogging. I repeated the exercise a few days later. My weight at the end of the week was 13st 2lb (84kg). Mileage for the week: 4.
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The Australian Connection (pt 2)

Not a bad view from my office window in Fairford (picture courtesy of my colleague Sue). Certainly beats working in the centre of London. Admittedly a strange choice given the theme this week but it is topical for any UK readers. I can think of a few Australians who would love these conditions right now: apparently Melbourne experienced the hottest night for 100 years this week ... 34ºC in the middle of the night!

Australians in their 20's have traditionally spent a couple of years in Europe with London as their base: work for a few months then buy a VW Combi and drive all over the continent taking in the sights, festivals etc. I always referred to it as their National Service. The girls who used to come through Queensland House, where I worked for many years, always had a wild time before going home and settling down. I'm still in touch with quite a few old friends (Linda, Majella, Donna, Kaye et al). For good runners the opportunities were fantastic: it was a chance to live the life of a professional athlete. Three such runners came over and did just that. They rented a house in Croydon and raced all over Europe. The house became a precursor to the now famous abodes in Teddington where the top Africans, Australians and Americans now live and train, basically a mecca for running with kit strewn around the place, itinerant runners sleeping on floors and always a big pot of food on the boil. I remember one Christmas the three had Italian runners staying with them. The Aussies prepared Christmas dinner with all the trimmings which went down well. By mid-afternoon they were all hungry again so the Italians cooked mounds of pasta! Italy was the favourite location for the guys, a combination of perfect running food and lots of it, plus the best money on offer at races. This was before the African domination so it was quite lucrative. Race organisers liked the publicity of antipodean runners in the field. So who were these three guys?

Max Little aka The Bear or The Tasmanian Devil, was the best runner. Another Tasmanian obviously - see my last blog - he ran in the World XC, later becoming Australia's team manager many times, won races all over Europe and had track pb's of 13:55 and 28:36, finishing 4th in the AAA 10,000 behind Brendan Foster at Crystal Palace. In his formative years as a runner he once completed 20 consecutive weeks of training between 100 and 141 miles. This workload couldn't be sustained but created a fantastic base for his future success and can be learned from - get the hard work done early and then your career is set up. The Americans are doing that right now and look at the results they are getting. Max was tall and looked like a stick insect but I've never known anyone eat as much as he did. He also had the wickedest sense of humour and was a real pleasure to be around. Like fellow international Jim Langford (last blog), Max was always happy to turn out for Ranelagh in Surrey League or Mob matches and loved the social element of the club. I remember persuading him to do the Newport to Tredegar 22 miler one December. This was the day after a Surrey League, which Max had won, and we drove down to S Wales in my old Ford Anglia. The rain never stopped, it was torrential, and my windscreen wipers failed! The race winds its way uphill all the way through some dire mining villages - goodness knows why we did it - with lashing rain throughout. For Max it was just another way to get a long Sunday run done - he was virtually last after a mile and just ran easily throughout - as well as to experience another part of the world. Similarly when training with the club on a Wednesday he was nearly always dropped in the first couple of miles because it was an easy run. His self-control and determination to do the training that was right for him was a lesson that today's runners can learn from.

Geoff Nicholson, known as Nicko, was also a top runner, albeit not in Max's class. He had some fine track pb's (8:14 whilst hitch-hiking through Sweden, 14:05, 29:30) and also loved cross country. He was good enough to make some decent money on the European circuit. I'll never forget the first time I met him, which would have been in the late 1970's. He sported a particularly hirsute look: long ginger hair and a fiery beard that hadn't been trimmed for many months - he looked like a heavy metal rock musician (I've seen a similar picture of Rob deCastella before he, like Nicko, became respectable). We still see a lot of Geoff as he comes to the UK regularly on business. He still runs regularly - despite rising to the very top in the business world he insists on getting out every day for his lunchtime run in Melbourne - and turns out most years in the famous City to Surf race in Sydney (being, I think, the only person to have run a time under his age for the tough 14km course that attracts some 75,000 participants). He's just bought a property with 27 acres of land so perhaps he might build a running track and we can all go warm weather training there.

The third of this triumvirate was George Thomas, who was without doubt the most influential person in my running career. George wasn't in the same class as the other two but loved his running and was a qualified and commited coach. He also loved fine wines which definitely endeared him to me. He stayed on in Europe for a number of years and became a very close friend. In the late 70's, when cricket was still my main sport and I only ran in winter for socialising purposes, George said to me that with a bit of application I could end up with an international vest. I put this ridiculous comment down to too much port, he and the others regularly downed great dollops of the stuff, but it sowed a seed in my mind and I started to apply myself to my running. He was a great mentor to me in subsequent years and the two of us used to race a lot in Holland where he ended up working. Even after he returned to Austrtalia he took a great interest (and pride perhaps) in my progress and even though I didn't ever get that elusive vest, I got a lot closer than would otherwise have been the case thanks to George and had a wonderful time trying. Tragically George had a heart attack and died aged 43 whilst driving home from a 10km race. A great man and a true friend.

The Australian Connection (pt 1)

An interesting festive period has now ended and if it wasn't for the heavy snow currently falling outside, things would be getting back to normal. I even managed a run, a race in fact. I just had to do the Boxing Day charity 4 miler at Cheltenham race course in memory of Pete Holmes who had won the race in 2008. Before the race I had the humbling experience, thanks to Chris Riches, of meeting Pete's parents who came along with his brother to support the run and present the winning trophy, which now bears their son's name. What lovely people and how they have kept their dignity and poise in such tragic circumstances. The run was purgatory for me, weight has ballooned by over two stone (see the evidence alongside) and any semblance of fitness disappeared a long time ago. Treacherous icy patches didn't help and checking my watch at the one mile mark (8min, must have been long) confirmed my worst fears. Still, I caught the enormous bulk that is Dave Newport in the last mile, gave him a smug look and uttered some fanciful words like: 'good luck mate, hope you get to the finish ok'. This lump of lard then proceeded to ease past me (thankfully the road was wide at that point) and stride towards the finish leaving me speechless, less than smug and totally out of breath.

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The next day, as part of a very social Christmas / New Year (23 in our house one evening!), we had Australian visitors to lunch, Jim and Margaret Langford and their respective daughters. Jim was a top class runner, winning the Australian XC Champs on more than one occasion and finishing 30th in the World XC Champs in Limerick in 1979. A number of us went over to support Jim and despite a very heavy weekend indeed (we stayed with mad Irishman and fellow Ranelagh Harrier Gerry Walsh, who with his twin and the rest of his eight siblings could drink with the best of them), I can still remember cheering Jim on down the home straight in the pouring rain and clawing mud, and gate crashing the official party later that evening. He ran with Ranelagh and got himself totally integrated into the club scene, racing every week and rewriting the record books. I remember a classic race between him and Hugh Jones in a mob match in 1976, Jim prevailing by 10 seconds in 38.53, a course record by a long way.

Jim was so enamoured by the Ranelagh scene that the poor guy accepted an invitation to the Isle of Man Easter athletic festival. This was not a weekend for the faint-hearted. As the name implies it takes place at Easter, not the warmest time of the year. It's good for the local economy because all the guest houses get filled up out of season; unfortunately none of them have any heating! I did this event five times and always went down with a heavy cold a couple of weeks later. Whilst, again as the name implies, there was athletics involved, the weekend has other attractions also ... there are three races: a five miler on a brutal course starting & finishing on the famous TT grid and taking in the superb Douglas sea front; a 4 x 3 mile relay taking in the same tough hill as Friday night, and finally a four mile fell race on the other side of the island in Peel (this latter event not always taken that seriously, I well remember stopping for a pint after half a mile, before the climb started, downing half of it and leaving the rest for the return journey). Tradition dictates that after this last race the runners jog back across the island, about 12 miles, to Douglas ... stopping at every pub for a drink along the way! The final event of the weekend was the beer race, always totally dominated by the university teams. Manchester University, aka Far Canal AC (think about it), usually won in a canter in the 4 x 1 pint format. By this stage we were all a little tired, especially given that we didn't go to bed at 10pm each night in anticipation of the next day's race! In fact in one year a madman from Edinburgh University, Robin Thomas was his name, decided to attempt (for charity) to run 100 miles and drink 100 pints in the 100 hours of the festival weekend. He was successful in his bid despite being an epileptic. Unfortunately he was billetted in our guest house which meant either signing for yet another pint with him at 3am or, even worse, accompanying him on another couple of miles at the same hour of the morning. Unforgettable times. Jim was never the same again. He is still running though at 65 and is also adept at rogaining, a form of long distance orienteering (look it up on google).

A few days before Christmas I received an e-mail out of the blue from another Australian acquaintance, Mike Dalton (Dorley to his friends). Mike (no. 574 in the picture, a veterans 5,000m race in 2008) stumbled across my blog and got in touch, I knew there was a purpose in writing this dross, someone out there reads it and, in this case, gets in touch after many years. It works! Mike and his friend Dean Giblin (in red singlet), both from Tasmania, also ran with Ranelagh, around 1990. These guys were quality athletes (Dorley ran 1.03.56 / 2.16; Dean won our half marathon and was a top class 1500/5000m runner). Claudie and I now need to add Tasmania to our many places to visit, especially as Dorley's address is the inspirationally named Seven Mile Beach!

I guess the first Aussie I knew at Ranelagh was the legendary Mal Cother - he arrived in 1970, having travelled via the Trans-Siberian express to watch the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. He arrived on a six month visa and left in about 1990, 20 years later! And what a legacy he left. His story telling at social dinners was amazing, he was so self-deprecating and his jokes bizarre in the extreme. The Ranelagh clubhouse used to be full of his possessions as he slept in the changing rooms for many years!

More next time on Mal plus close friends Max Little, Geoff Nicholson and George Thomas and sundry other Aussies. I might even regale readers about my 11 years working at Queensland House in London and the many friends made there if space allows. There is no doubt that my running and social heritage stems to a large extent from these wonderful Australian friends.

Christmas

Here we are folks, Christmas with the family and snow on the ground, just like in all the books. Just watched the Kirov Ballet's Swan Lake after a warming venison supper with my sister, which has got us into festive mode.

But it's also a time for reflection, in my case thinking of the nine people I know who have sadly been lost this year, including four under 25 and Natalie's dear Godfather Stephen. I'm particularly thinking of his wife and children tonight and also the family of Pete Holmes whose funeral was just a few days ago. It was unfair to see what his parents and brother had to go through that day. And to think their suffering has only just started.

All the above makes it imperative that we enjoy Christmas and look forward to a happy, prosperous and friendly New Year. To all those reading this dross, thanks for putting up with me for the last 12 months and have a great festive break.

The Psychology of Running

After spending last Sunday afternoon erecting and decorating an enormous Christmas tree in our lounge – why do we humans do such bizarre things? – I felt that I deserved to sit down and read the Sunday Times accompanied by a particularly large whisky, a packet of crisps and with a Rachmaninov piano concerto blasting away. (This custom started in my early 20’s after my flatmate Simon Collingridge and I had been out for our second Sunday run of the day, thus completing another weekend of hard training, drinking and, in Simon’s case, womanising. Trouble was it always seemed to be my whisky being consumed ...)

There was a brilliant Q&A piece on Sir Christopher Chataway (CC) in the ST and it made me laugh a lot. It also made me think. CC is now in his late 70’s and still competes in mob matches for Thames, although was absent when we thrashed them a couple of weeks ago. He was a very fine runner in the 50’s, being particularly remembered, along with my old chum Chris Brasher, for his part in Roger Bannister’s first 4 minute mile in 1954. Brasher took the first two laps, Chataway took it on for the third, leaving Bannister to take the glory at the end.

CC’s finest memory is of his famous 5,000m race against the Russian Vladimir Kuts in October that year. There were 40,000 spectators in the White City stadium in London. In those days there were no floodlights, instead two searchlights followed the runners as they circled the track in the cool autumnal evening, that must have been something special to watch. CC won the race by inches in a new world record of 13.51. Compared to today’s pampered, lottery funded, shoe sponsored, athletes, the top runners of the 50’s had nothing going for them. They did very little training (there having been no real science on the subject), ran in heavy, old leather shoes with no support, and on rough and often flooded cinder tracks ... and they nearly all smoked! CC stated that he cut down to seven cigarettes a day during the summer when he was competing!

So how were they able to run so fast? For starters anyone who ran then had a perception in their mind of what was needed to be competitive and therefore had an inherent belief that they could run at the necessary speed. This is an argument I’ve used a lot when talking to today’s runners about why standards were so much better in the 80’s – you effectively turned up at your club and ran at the pace necessary to keep up, then went away and trained hard on your own so that you could keep up the following week! At a finance seminar I recently attended, someone quoted the famous economist John Maynard Keynes on the paradox of thrift: "if we are all prudent together, there can be no growth." Growth being exactly what our economy needs at present but thrift and lack of ambition holding it back. This can easily been linked to training. There's no point just pottering along together at an easy pace (prudence) when to get fitter (growth) it takes more investment in extra input, effort and energy. No gain without pain.

Back to the 50's, at the highest level it then became a psychological battle to be the best. The Austrian Franz Stampfl coached all three of the 4 minute mile protagonists. As well as being one of the early pioneers of the standard interval session on the track (yep, blame him every time you are asked to do 10 x 400 off 200 recovery), he had a strong belief in the mental aspect of training and racing. As CC stated in the article, he conveyed masses of positive thoughts to the runner, including just before the Kuts race: "don’t forget he’s just as frightened of you." I’ve always tried to convey this to athletes i.e. don’t look across at the guy running alongside you in a race and assume he is better than you; think positively about how the guy is hanging on for dear life and also show positivity to make him feel even worse, a little smile perhaps or a gentle surge for a few metres. This can be the difference between a good and a great runner. A little bit of arrogance is a good thing in a runner.

CC won the first ever Sports Personality of the Year award in 1954, quite remarkable considering that Bannister had broken the 4 minute barrier. However, his greatest memory of that night wasn’t collecting the famous outside broadcast camera trophy but of being given an enormous, extremely expensive cigar!

Finally, some good news at last for me to end an all round tough year. No, I don't mean winning Ciren's athlete of the year award, although very proud of that despite my embarrassing beer belly. I've been asked and have accepted to mentor and coach a top UK international distance athlete. We live some distance apart but have met up a couple of times already, contact each other on a daily basis and are both looking forward to an exciting 2010. It's going to be hard work and a real challenge but hopefully fun as well.

Pete Holmes 1985-2009

Pete Holmes died at the weekend at the age of 24.

In his short life he achieved masses, running initially with Tetbury Royals, then Cirencester AC before going to Loughborough University and joining up with Cheltenham Harriers.

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Upon graduating he landed a plum job as media officer with the British Triathlon Association and then, presumably because he was good at what he did, last year became communications manager of the International Triathlon Union based in Vancouver, Canada, from where he travelled the world of professional triathlon events.

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It was in Canada that he died, falling from a mountain when out on snowshoes. Words cannot accurately convey the awfulness of this dreadful tragedy.

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Pete was a true maverick but the 5,826 hits in the last 24 hours on the thread relating to his death on the running forum website eightlane.com, testify to his popularity and the shock of this awful news within the running community. Never has the oft used phrase Life's too Short been more apt than in relation to Pete's demise.

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Pete, I'll never forget Stroud last year when you just prevailed ahead of Wendy & me - you couldn't face the thought of being beaten by the first lady/V50 - and ran down the finishing straight with your now iconic Ryan Hall moment celebrating qualifying for London. That image will stay with me as will our lovely, friendly chat afterwards.

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At this difficult time one can only offer the deepest sympathy to those closest to him, his parents, brother and girlfriend.