Having the guts to chase glory (From Surrey Comet)

Having the guts to chase glory

1:19pm Friday 15th April 2005 in

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More than 45,000 runners the highest number yet have signed up for the London Marathon on Sunday. Why do they do it, knowing the agony it entails? How did this hardy annual bloom into one of the world's greatest marathons? Whose idea was it anyway? John Bryant gives some answers in a book to mark the 25th anniversary of this unique event.

The idea was born in the 1970s, over a few beers in the Dysart Arms, Petersham. Local resident Chris Brasher, Olympic gold medallist and pacemaker for the world's first four-minute mile, was listening agog to tales of the spectacular New York Marathon with his friend and one-time steeplechasing partner, John Disley of Hampton.

Brasher decided to run it himself, running the 26 miles with 11,532 others. He returned to Britain fired with enthusiasm for a city race on a scale never seen before.

Brasher described it in his Observer newspaper column as "one joyous family, working together, laughing together, achieving the impossible", and asked if London could stage something similar.

After gruelling hard work, his question was answered on March 29, 1981, when 7,055 runners set out to run the first London Marathon over a course designed by Disley.

One of those runners was athlete and journalist John Bryant of Kingston. Now aged 60, he has run in 22 London Marathons since then, and will do so again on Sunday.

It won't be a doddle for him or his thousands of companions. For, as he explains in his book, published by Hutchinson this week at £14.99, the human body is not designed to run marathons of 26 miles 385 yards.

Over that distance, "the average runner's feet hit the ground over 30,000 times," he writes. "Each step sends a shock the equivalent of three times your body weight through your legs, your thighs and your spine. Slapping your foot against the road can rupture small blood vessels in the feet and legs and can reduce your levels of haemoglobin, needed to carry oxygen through your blood cells. An average 160kb person will be subjected to as much as 650lbs of pressure per footstep, every time the foot hits the ground."

He adds the best runners can complete the marathon in just over two hours, at an average speed of 13mph, and consuming about 3,000 calories. And, though non-elite runners take much longer to complete the distance, the total fuel consumption is roughly the same.

"But fast or slow, the physiological stresses can become so severe that sometimes, however determined a runner might be, the body can take it no more hypothermia, dehydration or simply physical damage such as blisters can bring anybody to a standstill."

He describes "the wall", a dreaded physiological and mental breaking point that lurks around every corner after the 18-mile mark.

"Runners mutter that even when you reach 20 miles, the race is only half over," writes John. "The truth is that this point marks the end of the beginning. After 20, the collapse of controlled effort, the disintegration of smooth and easy running comes all too suddenly. This is where the marathon, the suffering, the true effort really begins at the wall."

This is because the body runs dangerously low on glycogen, the sugar-based fuel that keeps the engine ticking over.

"When the tank is nearly empty, all hell breaks loose," he writes. "If you are lucky you can still run, burning only fat. But it slows you down and floods you with pain. Marathon runners live in dread of it."

Nevertheless, most runners reach the finish high on a wave of excitement and adrenalin, their agony dulled by endorphins, the chemicals released by the brain to deaden pain.

"Most like to claim they do it for health and fitness, but the haunted, hollow-eyed stare of so many of those who stumble across the finish line tells a different story," he says.

So why do people come back for more?

"They come back because this time they think they won't end up hitting the wall," explains John, who is no stranger to "the wall" himself. "You always believe that next time you can beat it. You can run round it, over it, past it, somehow. You'll get fitter, you'll drink more, you'll get the pace right, the shoes right. You will always think that this time you will be the hero you were meant to be so you come back, year after year if you can get in. You're like a surfer searching for the perfect wave."

John worked closely with Chris Brasher, John Disley and Dave Bedford in founding the London Marathon and remembers the "unbelievable" difficulty in getting roads closed and dealing with the police and various local councils involved. Everything had to be done on a shoestring, and the administration was handled by local clubs. These included Thames Hare and Hounds and Thames Navigators, who share headquarters in the Memorial Playing Fields at Kingston Vale, and Ranelagh Harriers, based at the Dysart Arms in Petersham.

"But Brasher refused to take no for an answer. He bulldozed it through," said John.

That first marathon in 1981 had its problems. For instance, there was only one loo at the starting point, and that was locked. So scuffles broke out between local residents and runners searching for relief in back gardens. Nevertheless, 6,255 people managed to reach the finish and the event made a surplus of more than £12,000.

The London Marathon's first-year budget was £75,000, the entry fee was £5 and the winner got a cheap wristwatch. Today the budget is £7million, the entry fee is £27 and £2million is spent on the elite runners who are an essential component of success. The event also enables the runners as a whole to raise an annual £35million for charity.

John's book traces the ancient Greek origins of marathon events and lifts the lid on the cheats, the eccentrics and a host of other intriguing details too numerous to cite here.

However successful the London event is, it has a dismal side. For one of the founders' original goals was to raise the standard of British running, and this it has failed to do.

"Despite the marathon's huge investment in sport in London, its support of Britain's endurance squad and its financial commitment to a high-performance centre at St Mary's College, Twickenham, British distance runners are just not winning," writes John.

He reveals that shortly before his death, Chris Brasher said the failure of top British men runners was his greatest disappointment.

Nick Bitel, the London Marathon's chief executive, blames the decline in standards on young Britons being unfit and obese.

Allister Hutton, who won the London Marathon in 1990, having come third in the previous two years, is more forthright.

"It's just that people are too lazy now to get off their backsides and do hard work. That's why we don't have good runners any more in the middle and long distances. The source has just dried up," he says in the book.

"Nobody is interested in doing the training that's necessary, or even the training we were doing 15 years ago. You have to be hungry for it, and that hunger doesn't seem to exist any more."

Twenty-nine of Sunday's runners have run every marathon since the event began. They include insurance executive John Hanscomb of Surbiton; banker and businessman Jan Hildreth of Wimbledon; school teacher Mike Peace of the Petersham-based Ranelagh Harriers and Jeffrey Gordon of Putney.

All are in their 70s.