The Passage of Time

Athletics Weekly did a piece this week on Steve Jones breaking the world marathon record in Chicago as it is now 30 years since he famously ran 2.08.05.  For reasons that will become apparent this kick-started my memory bank.

Here's a statistic that will be mind blowing to all.  Firstly, bear in mind that it took 15 years for the world record to come down a mere 28 seconds, from Derek Clayton's 2.08.33 in 1969 to Jones' mark. Now digest the fact that in 30 years Jones' 2.08.05 has been beaten 615 times and the world record is now 2.02.57 (Berlin a couple of weeks ago).  Nearly all of these times having been run by either Kenyans (about 90%) or Ethiopians.  To say the event has been hijacked by East Africans is an understatement in the extreme.

The feat of Jones breaking the WR was big news and featured highly on all the main news bulletins in 1984. It was therefore quite an event when a bunch of us from Ranelagh stumbled across him just seven days later.  We had a decent pack of runners in the early 80's and we often used to pick races some distance away for the chance of picking up a team prize and having a few beers.  Thus a bunch of us we trekked down the M4 to run the Swindon Half Marathon.  We arrived at the school registration hall to a buzz of excitement, had our arrival been leaked to the local press, did our reputation go before us?  No, Steve Jones had decided to run the race.

from left at a race in Holland: Collingridge, Wright, Hedger, Pautard

It was a most surreal experience running around the bleak industrial estates of Swindon with the newly-crowned world record holder.  There were six of us in the lead pack for the first few miles before Jones eased away to win in around 66 minutes.  The team race was very exciting as we (Ranelagh Harriers) won by a single point with 3rd (Simon Collingridge), 4th (DW chasing down my flatmate) and 6th (Steve Pautard) ahead of Swindon Harriers (2nd, 5th, 7th).  Jones was running for the RAF; not only did he do the Half just seven days after Chicago but he'd also run a xc race for the RAF in the week.