From Last to First: How I Became a Marathon Champion by Charlie Spedding

Author:Charlie Spedding [Spedding, Charlie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Autobiography, Biography, Non-Fiction, Running & Jogging, Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9781845136895
Google: LC3BAgAAQBAJ
Amazon: B0077FAWP4
Publisher: Aurum Press
Published: 2011-04-24T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

ATHENS AND BRISBANE

In 1982 the European Championships were to be held in Athens during September, and the Commonwealth Games were in Brisbane four weeks later. My various road race victories had given me the confidence to believe I might make the team for one of these. I was determined to train as well as possible, to make this dream come true.

Winter training, for most runners, consisted of lots of miles, with occasional cross country races. I knew from my experience in Boston that I needed to include some faster running every week, and without an indoor track, it was going to be difficult. I could do sessions on the track at Gateshead, or, if I had to, I could use a quiet road. Or so I thought.

My training diaries, which record the details of every training session throughout my career, also perform another task. They prove the advance of global warming! It is several years now since snow lay on the ground in Newcastle for more than a few hours, but my diaries record regular falls of lasting snow. In January 1982 we had several inches which lasted more than a week. The track at Gateshead was closed, and all the roads were covered in ice or slush. Easy running was treacherous, and fast running was impossible. I tried training in a multi-storey car park but there were too many sharp bends. I discovered that there was really only one suitable venue in the North East.

The Tyne Tunnel is a well known and extremely busy road under the River Tyne, in between Newcastle and the coast. Half a mile away is the less well known pedestrian Tyne Tunnel, which is about the same width and height as an underground train tunnel. It is best described as dank, but completely free from snow and wind, and it was in this tunnel, beneath the river Tyne, that I tried to replicate the training sessions I had performed on Harvard’s award winning indoor track a year earlier. I trained there on several occasions, and rarely saw anybody else travelling through the tunnel. However, I did have a slight altercation with the guard who mans the entrance. Halfway through my first session, he came along the tunnel and told me that whatever I was doing he didn’t think I should be doing it in his tunnel. I referred him to the notice at the entrance, which laid down the rules for users of the tunnel. I pointed out that I was clearly a pedestrian; I was not riding a bicycle; I was not smoking or drinking; and, even if I say so myself, I was quite confident that I was not loitering. I always laugh when people try to tell me there is just no glamour in long distance running.

At the beginning of the year I made a detailed plan of my training and racing, up to the AAA Championship in July, which was the trial race for the European and Commonwealth Games. I showed it to Lindsay and we discussed it at length.

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