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Running Crazy - Imagine Running a Marathon. Now Imagine Running Over 100 of Them. Incredible True Stories from the World's Most Fanatical Runners. Helen Summer
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isbn 9781857827286
Автор произведения Helen Summer
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство Ingram
‘I was also pretty sure I was getting closer to the city centre as I’d started to recognise some landmarks and at last I saw Meskel Square in the distance and could clearly make out the race director resplendent in his yellow tracksuit,’ he continues.
Has the man no shame?
‘But first I had to cross some traffic lights at the busiest intersection of the city. I closed my eyes and launched myself across eight lanes of traffic, hoping the lights would remain on red. Luckily they did!
‘And then I saw the finish – or at least what remained of the finish. Originally it had been marked by an arch of balloons and a bouncy castle, but by the time I crossed the line, the bouncy castle had already been deflated and folded up. Not that I was going to let a little thing like that stop me celebrating finishing the race! I held my arms aloft and dipped as I crossed the line as though I was involved in a photo finish!
‘And then, unbelievably, [I really don’t see how Chris can even think of using such a word at this stage of the story, but he does] despite all my efforts and probably being one of the few runners who had actually completed the race under my own steam, the race director and his driver greeted me with a slow hand clap!’
Shoot them, Mr Mainwaring!
‘There was no sign of any other runners or spectators…’
Hardly surprising given they’d all been driven to the finish and probably by that time were enjoying their Sunday roast or whatever the African equivalent is.
‘I asked the race director what was my time. He looked at his watch and told me it was about 5 hours 37 minutes, which I was quite surprised by as I’d expected it to be around 4 hours. Maybe my surprise showed on my face because the race director’s driver then joined in the conversation and said he thought it was more like 5 hours 10 minutes, as if this was some sort of consolation, and reminded the race director that they had been late starting.’
You may as well have asked the ox, Chris.
‘I asked the race director when the previous runner had finished,’ he goes on. ‘The race director looked into the distance and shuffled his feet, and then told me it was about an hour ago. So I asked if he had to wait for anyone else and his assistant said in a low voice, “No, there is no one else.”
‘Only then did it dawn on me that they were embarrassed to tell me that I’d come last – and by a long way!’
Yes, but only because you and the ox were the only ones who didn’t cheat, Chris!
‘At that point, I decided I’d encroached upon their Sunday afternoon long enough, recovered my tracksuit from an ice cream parlour (where I’d left it in the absence of any changing facilities) and, by way of recompense, helped them load the bouncy castle into the back of their car. Then they offered me a lift back to my hotel, which I accepted.’
As opposed to offering him a lift halfway through the race…
‘There wasn’t even a finisher’s medal,’ he adds. ‘All I got to remember the day by was sunburn on the back of my legs, where I’d forgotten to apply sun block! Oh, and a racing heart that went on far into the night – probably a combination of the sunburn, dehydration and altitude. It was an extraordinary experience.’
And that last comment earns itself the ‘understatement of this book’ award.
Certainly, this was an experience that Chris could never have foreseen when he ran his first marathon at Scarborough in 1981 at the age of just 19.
‘I’d trained specifically for it, and finished in 3 hours 36 minutes 33 seconds,’ he recalls, ‘although I wasn’t at all bothered about the time – I just wanted to finish.’
Having joined a running club at 14, by the time Chris was in his mid-20s he had become quite a serious runner.
‘I ran my fastest marathon in 2 hours 48 minutes when I was 27,’ he says. ‘I’d run 22 marathons by then, but then due to other commitments which meant I couldn’t put in the time for training and racing, I stopped running altogether. However, I took it up again seven years later with the intention of completing 100 marathons.
‘To be honest,’ he goes on, sounding a little dismal, ‘since I achieved 100, I’ve lost a bit of motivation. These days, and certainly for the last five years, I’ve stopped thinking of myself as a serious runner. I’m not bothered about the numbers and I’m too old to go for times.
‘Still,’ he adds, sounding a mite more cheerful, ‘I do it as much for the social side as anything else now, meeting up with my running friends at the races I go to. I think of it more as a leisure activity and only do about four or five races each year. They tend to be the same ones each time – Berlin, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Amsterdam – I like big cities with flat courses!’
How very sensible.
‘And,’ he goes on, decidedly more cheery now, ‘apart from a little bit of knee trouble over the last few years, I’ve been very lucky not to have suffered from any serious injuries all the time I’ve been running. Given that most of my training and racing has been done on the road, that’s really something of a miracle!’
SUMMER SHORTS
Unfortunately, one of the difficulties of having started running early in life is that you never better your best times set when you were younger and in your running prime. However, as Chris has discovered, there are many other aspects of running that can motivate and inspire you, such as the social side, the travel and the camaraderie. Not forgetting some rather unusual after-dinner stories gathered along the way…
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