Loch Ness Marathon & 10K

Here are some photographs, taken at this event.
(click photo for enlargement)

Radio Programme

I'm aware that I have been recommending or mentioning various things about running this year including books, films and TV programmes but here's another. On Monday night there is a programme on Radio 4 about the sub-2 hour marathon. Previews make it sound good and it's always been a topic of discussion for runners. I have chatted about it with (especially) Cyril O'Boyle, Ian Donald, Allan Faulds, Bobby Shields and Phil as well. If you take the line that because you are never going to do one, then it's irrelevant, you're wrong. I remember a Special Ed lecturer at Jordanhill pointing out that we learn from the extremes - in this case we can all learn from what the very top people are doing as well as from the runners doing outside 4 hours. I picked up a lot from Gus Campbell for instance when we talked about his marathon running pushing a pram in the 80's, for instance. If you can't get it on Monday, no doubt it'll be on the iPlayer.

Marathon Times

Marina McCallum recently ran a very good marathon in a time of 3:26. The question is, how does that compare with club men's times? It is hard to compare and you probably can't get an exact comparison but if we use the International Scoring Tables which give points for times, distances and heights in events for both men and women we get the following.
Three Hours for Men gets you 373 points. 373 points for women are allocated for 3:46:03. So Marina (326 which equals 3:04:18) is almost on the three hours. Kath is reported to be even faster so I'll just list some times and equivalent points.

Three hours for a woman is equal in the tables to 776 points: 776 points for a man equal 2:31:21.
3:10:00 for a woman = 2:37:35 for a man; and
3:15:00 for a woman = 2:40:41 for a man.

So there you are: not exact but as near exact as athletics can get. So well done Marina and Kath!

1963 SAAA Marathon

I was writing a bit about Ian Harris winning the Scottish marathon in 1963 at the weekend. I'm bringing it up here because the trail went right down the Boule to Strathleven Estate and back to Anniesland! In the 50's and 60's there was a tendency to make marathons hard races - pick difficult trails and the one at the Isel of Wight was supposed to be the toughest in the country. In 1963 the race started at Westerlands (beside Anniesland Station for the newer club members!) and went straight out the Boulevard. The favourite was Jim Alder who had won the Edinburgh to North Berwick and then set a new AAA's record for twenty miles on the road. He fancied his chances as well. Ian Harris from Beith was a first class athlete whpo had only run one marathon before (in 1961) and dropped out. In 1962 he joined the Army and eventually became a member of the Paras. So he came up from Aldershot to run in the SAAA marathon. It was a ferociously warm day - Alastair Wood came down from Aberdeen and decided not to run, Ming Campbell waved to the runners as they left the stadium.
Alder went straight into the lead - it was his first ever marathon - and all the way out built up a lead over Harris. Down the Boule, first water point was opposite the Motel, up to the hill above Gavinburn, down again, up the hill and then down all the way to the garage at the road junction, out the back road and round the Strathleven Estate - Alder in his autobiography reckons that he thought at that point that he had all these hills to go back up on the return journey but he just kept battering on and then at about Knightswood the wheels fell off. He was over two minutes ahead at twenty miles, Harris caught him at between twenty three and twenty four miles and beat him by almost seven minutes. Seven minutes! ie he was running more than three minutes a mile slower than Harris on the way in to the finish! "And he never even congratulated me says Harris. In fact Alder was almost caught on the track by Clark Wallace of Shettleston Harriers.
It's unfortunate that in the history of the SAAA Marathon Championship (A Hardy Race) the impression is given that Alder was unlucky to lose the race. To me, two inexperienced marathon men on a very tough course on a seriously hot day ran two different races and the one who was maybe a bit cautious at the start beat the one who went for the win.
Incidentally, a trail that Harriers used to use in Clydebank as a pre-marathon 20 miler started at the Baths in Bruce Street, went out to Dunglass and turned back up the Bouevard and carried on to the Police Station at Mill Road where the runners turned on the spot and went back all the way they had just come out. There were plenty places to cut the trail on the way back if you wanted but you were a cissie if you did that! Mind you, it paid to have some sustenance in your kit bag when you returned - that orange and/or big bar of fruit and nut was more than welcome!

Steve Jones

Steve Jones the former marathon star and still the fastest marathon runner produced by the British Isles, is at Scotstoun on Wednesday to speak to coaches about his event. If you are coaching a marathon runner then you should contact Mary Anderson at Scottish Athletics about it. It's from 6:30 to 8:30 and I believe that it is free. There will be ample time for questions.

Fund raising for London Marathon

Gerry Montgomery is running in this year's London Marathon - and to raise funds for his Save the Rhino Charity - he's holding a evening of entertainment at Vale of Leven Golf Club where hopefuly everyone will have a good time and at the same time help Gerry raise funds for his worthwhile cause.

For more information on the evening, please follow this link

Marathon Club?

I met old friend and training partner Alistair McFarlane in Perth on Friday and the conversation got around to the standard of Scottish marathon running. I was talking about correspondence that I had with Jim Dingwall in 1985 in which he said that the lowest annual mileage he had done since 1972 was 3990. That I think works out at about 77 miles per week. We are talking about that mileage at least for a period of 13 years. Mind you he was really exceptional in talent (Scottish titles from 1500 metres up to the marathon and a pb of 2:11.)and determination often running five marathons a year in or under 2:20. Unfortunately most of the top men from that period - Don McGregor, Sandy Keith, Fergus Murray and the rest are all away from the sport now but let's not forget what they achieved. The Don ran 24 marathons inside 2:20 and was still doing so at the age of 46, Fraser Clyne did 22 marathons inside 2:20, Colin Youngson ran 40 marathons inside 2:30 and 9 inside 2:20. The fact that they are no longer for consultation means that present day marathon runners are 'running blind' without the reference points that would guide or even just illuminate their training.

Our talk turned to the Scottish Marathon Club. I had joined in 1961 and Alistair in 1975. Founded in 1945 by some marathon enthusiasts with the sole objective which appeared on it's annual fixture list as "to foster marathon running in Scotland." The main men were Dunky Wright and Jim Scott who was a superb hard working secretary, treasurer/race organiser and whatever else needed doing. They printed out an annual fixture list - nowadays it would probably be on their own website. They spoke to and assisted race organisers and had their own SMC Championship spread over 4 races - a 12 miler at Springburn, 16 Miles at Clydebank to Helensburgh, 20 miles at Strathallan and the Scottish Marathon Championship. The championship was decided on points won at three of these races with the marathon a compulsory race. The target was the marathon - and that helped to improve the state of road racing generally.

Is there a case for the resurrection of the SMC? Well there are similarities in the situation now and in 1945. The standard is low, despite the apparent imminently successful career looming for Andrew Lemoncello, Scottish marathon running has seldom if ever been so poor. Now as then, the governing body seems almost completely uninterested in its development. Now as then there are many good runners who want to improve their times and now as then there is no real support system available to bring these people together.

Almost all marathon runners joined over the years - top class men such as Ian Harris, Alistair Wood, Fergus Murray, Doug Gunstone, Sandy Keith, Jim Dingwall and so on joined up. It was not an elite club though - David Bowman, Willie Howie and I from Clydesdale, Jim Sloss and Ian Mckenna from Beith, Wallace Crawford from Victoria Park, Eddie Campbell from Lochaber, Colin Martin and Alistair Milroy from Dumbarton and many others became members. Remember they were not all actual marathon men when they joined but wanted to be. The club also organised an annual 45 mile Edinburgh to Glasgow race and took athletes to the annual London to Brighton as well as the Ben Nevis race. It encouraged women to take up the sport and the first woman to hold the world record for the marathon was Dale Greig from Paisley who was the only woman in the club at the time although several joined during the 70's and 80's

The question now is - would such a club be a good idea NOW or not? Interest has been expressed in such from Aberdeen and Glasgow. What do our club members think? I'm seriously looking for a response here from the road and distance running people in the club. Do you think that there is a need for such a club, would you join it if there were one? Opinions, either way, hoped for! The more the merrier!

Charlie Spedding

Charlie Spedding was a member of the great Gaateshead team of the 70's which included such as Brendan Foster, Geoff Turnbull and company. Many of them, including Geoff, subsequently left to form Valli but the Gateshead team was superb. Masterminded by Stan Long with Lindsay Dunn also one of the mainstays they carried all before them. Spedding was the last Briton to wn an Olympic medal for the marathon when he was third in 1964. Like almost all of his generation he is quite critical of the present generation of distance runners. He cracks the well worn joke about the last Briton to win the Great North Run being a Kenyon! Steve Kenyon that is of Salford.

He is now 57 and runs a pharmacy in Wallsend and has written his life story in "From First To Last" which is well worth a read. It is priced at a more than reasonable £8:99 and is available from www.charliespedding.com

World Championships Marathon

I enjoyed watching the marathon in Berlin this morning - what a pace the guys were going for the whole distance but, wait a minute! The Commonwealth Games Marathon in Edinburgh in 1970 went through 10 miles in 47 minutes - what did they go through in this morning? Just outside 47 minutes. The pack at that point included several British and Scottish runners, it was not a lone Englishman out in front. So what was the difference? This year they just kept it going for a bit further than 1970. So what did Ron Hill and Jim Alder and company know that we don't know now? Or is it attitude rather than knowledge that is lacking? Did you see the winner being sick a couple of times just before the finish but keep on running? These guys are not different, they just work harder and want it more. Or is it more complicated than that?
That's the kind of discussion I used to have with Cyril O'Boyle after every major marathon, world of European Championships or cross country championships. We would run for about three hours on a Sunday morning and the chat would never stop! His heroes were many but in particular there was Emil Zatopek and the almost perpetual runner up Alain Mimoun. Look them up on the internet! I have a photocopy of Zatopek's biography and if anyone wants it, just ask. It's called "Zatopek the Marathon Victor" and worth getting. But then Cyril was a Running University conducted on the hoof. He went to any event that he thought would help him in his running - Forbes Carlyle the great Australian swimming coach was speaking in the Clydebank Town Hall and he went along to that, the cyclists had a world champipn speaking, again in the Town Hall, and he went to that as well. We did a lot fo talking and analysing of these events too when I was living in Lenzie and running with Alistair McFarlane and Doug Gunstone but no one was ever like Cyril.
What did YOU learn from the Berlin race this morning?