By Lindsay Ash
LAST time I put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard if you wish to be pedantic) for the JEP I touched on the subject of the use of the pavement. Now, as the days grow longer, we see a new pavement dweller becoming more prevalent: that of the jogger or runner. There seem to be three types of these species, those too mean to join a gym, those who are taking a break from the gym to go running and those training for the fast-looming London Marathon. In days past, the marathon was reserved for top-level athletes and had a certain mystique that hung over it – but I will cover that later. Firstly, let’s look at the enormous number of idiots who have no hope of winning the London Marathon but turn up to be part of a great event for reasons only known to themselves. It’s not possible to cover all of these morons but let’s pick a casebook study and attempt to examine their psyche.
I am going to pick the year 1988, mainly because that was the year I did it. I thus know the reasons why and I know my knees have never recovered from it.
I was working at the time in the City with a group of highly enthusiastic Americans who, in September, suggested we all entered the London Marathon. Now my mate and I readily agreed, knowing that our chances of getting in were very slim… sadly they had applied from Chicago and thus, as overseas entrants, we were all admitted. They trained in a manner that could be said to be over-diligent and bordering on the professional, whereas we took the path of the amateur and were more laid-back, using the controversial Rip Van Winkle method. On the Friday before the race one said: “I bet you wish you’d trained and were running on Sunday?” I replied that we would be there (which was news to my mate) and we were just off for a few pints of Guinness and pasta which was known as “carbohydrate loading”… they spluttered something about “yes, but that’s if you’d trained”. To which we replied: “Even more important if you haven’t.”
The big day arrived and my Dad dropped us off at Blackheath. He said he remembered as he drove off seeing a chap in a Japanese international tracksuit doing warm-ups while observing us smoking a Silk Cut. Anyway, to cut a long story short, with no training I completed it in about five hours, only to find my mate – feeling I wouldn’t finish and would have packed up – had half-inched my tracksuit, leaving me to sit on the train back to Orpington wrapped in silver foil nibbling on a third of the sponsors Mars bars.
The next day it took me ten minutes from getting off the train at London Bridge to get to the cab rank. I could see people thinking “poor devil, two hip replacements at his age” In fairness to the Yanks, instead of ridiculing my time they shook me by the hand and said they never thought I’d be mad enough to do it with no training and well done to finish.
But the story doesn’t stop there. A few months later, my mate and I went up to see Millwall v Coventry City at Highfield Road. We’d paid the then enormous price of £50 for a seat in the directors box and lunch. It was a great day because we got there early and a chap took us round the dressing rooms etc and, after a fairly uneventful 0-0 draw, we went back to the bar and, while having a beer, chatted with George Curtis and John Sillett, the management duo who’d guided Coventry to the FA Cup when they beat Spurs in a great final at Wembley. We then started to talk to this bloke who was dressed in a tracksuit. Being the quick-witted South Londoners we were, the conversation went like this:
“Nice tracksuit mate. You look as though you’re off to do the marathon.”
“Thanks… no marathon today though!”
“We’ve done the marathon… without training. You?”
“Yes, done a couple.”
“Yup, but looking at you. I bet you trained?”
“Yes, quite a bit.”
“Yeah, anyone can do that, to be honest, but to do it without training, that’s special.”
“Yes, very good effort that.”
“Anyway, good luck son. Remember, training is for mugs.”
When we got back on the train my mate was reading the programme and showed me a picture of the bloke in the bar…
Once I had confirmed it was the same chap, he read from the programme: “Dave Long is a lifelong Sky Blues fan and is a special guest of the club today having competed for Great Britain in the Olympic Marathon in Seoul, where he finished 21st.”
Silly sod might have won if he’d not trained. Shame, eh?
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Lindsay Ash was Deputy for St Clement between 2018 and 2022, serving as Assistant Treasury and Home Affairs Minister under Chief Minister John Le Fondré. He worked in the City of London for 15 years as a futures broker before moving to Jersey and working in the Island’s finance industry from 2000.
Feedback welcome on Twitter @Getonthelash2
