So this all feels harder - into Lockdown 3 with no fixed end in sight, the infection rates still at a very high alarming level, hospitals over-stretched and the vaccine rollout seemingly happening at a frustratingly slow pace (though I’m sure we’ll look back and marvel at the extraordinary speed).
This post shares something one of my long term clients and I came up with when he contracted COVID-19 that might work for others.
It’s not to play down the terrible difficulties and loss many people are experiencing - but picks up on the theme from the last blog post about lighting a candle in the darkness.
Running with the Kenyans, Lasse Viren and other Greats
It started last year when we were looking for ways to add some imaginative spice to my client’s training runs. He was spending long hours in a box room at home on Zoom meetings, bearing all the stresses of responding to restrictions, closing projects down and readjusting others, all working remotely. With no events in the calendar to aim for there were no competitions to provide a distraction and different focus. And at the same time we wanted to increase the intensity of some runs to be ready if and when things opened up - but all in a stress free way.
And so we devised a set of higher tempo runs with lots of pace changes and variety, built around imagining running with different people or groups. One was a training run in the Kenyan Highlands with some light hearted, light on their feet Kenyans (recounted in this earlier blog post). The great Lasse Viren came out of retirement to run through the Finnish forests, sharing his gliding and floating training technique before reliving his epic 10k Gold at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Steve Ovett and Henry Rono’s 2 mile world record setting duel, full of pace changes, surges and victory waves also got a run out.
All was going reasonably well - and then two weeks ago he and his wife and in-laws all contracted the virus. No going out for anything - at all. And certainly no runs with imaginary greats.
So we hit on the idea of making our weekly Coaching Calls in to a twice a week call to tell each other about a running or other legend who inspired us. So here below are just three of those we researched and shared with each other.
Hicham El Guerrouj, morocco
First up, arguably the greatest middle distance runner, current 1500m world record holder, the only man other than Flying Finn Paarvo Nurmi to win gold at both 1500m and 5000m at the same Olympic Games.
One of the striking features of El Guerrouj’s story, as my client retold it, was how he persisted over twelve years of apparent disappointments before his greatest and final epic victory.
In the final of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, poised to challenge Algerian Nouredine Morcelli, he fell at 400m and ended up coming in last. How do you pick yourself up from that? Four years on, with an extraordinary set of world records now behind him and in the form of his life, he was the favourite for gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Leading through the last two laps he was agonisingly outsprinted by Kenyan star Noah Ngeny in the last 25ms.
Another four years on and this time a not so promising build up to the 2004 Athens Games. Yet El Guerrouj first won the 1500m in an amazing finish battling with Bernard Lagat all the way to the line, winning by just 0.12 seconds. He later said memories of all the previous disappointments spurred him to his final victorious lunge for the line. And just four days later he won the 5000m.
What persistence over twelve years at the very top to finally reach his ultimate goal!
Another feature my client highlighted was El Guerrouj’s tactic of increasing the pace still a long way out from the finish. In the 1500m final at Athens he got to the front with two laps to go and increased his pace so that every 100ms was faster than the one before! No wonder super sprinter Lagat couldn’t hold him off at the very end. And who would have thought of going hard so far out when most runners are gathering themselves for the final sprint.
Which brings us nicely to our next legend.
Filbert Bayi, Tanzania
Here is another story of an athlete overcoming earlier disappointments and doing something out of the ordinary.
As a teenager in the 1972 Munich Olympics, up and coming Filbert Bayi found himself boxed in, pushed around and eliminated in the heats of both the 1500m and 3000m steeplechase.
Come the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games and there’s one of the most star studded fields - and Filbert Bayi, still largely an unknown, is determined to do things differently. From the gun, he set off at a blistering pace leaving the rest behind. At 800m he was 20m ahead and still looking strong while the others were all struggling to make up the yawning gap. Into the last 100ms and John Walker looked to be closing in but Bayi just kept it going, later recalling the moment “I see John Walker behind me and I say ‘now is the time to say - catch me if you can!’”
He tore the world record apart - Walker also finishing inside the previous record and those behind set some of the world’s fastest times, all in his wake. It is still talked about as one of the greatest middle distance races ever. And with it Bayi broke the mould of fast finishing 1500ms for good.
Abebe Bikila,ethiopia
Still with us? Just one to go… for now! And this one is of another runner who seemed to come out of nowhere to set the world alight.
Legend has it that Bikila was a late entry to the Ethiopian marathon team for the Rome 1960 Olympics when one of the other runners was forced out. Once in Rome he bought himself a pair of running shoes but didn’t get on with them, so decided to run barefoot.
A story I heard was that going in to the race his coach told him to watch out for the favourite, Moroccan rival Rhadi Ben Abdesselam - but incorrectly told him the number he would be wearing. As it happens the two approached the finish, side by side, with Bikila wondering where the Moroccan had got to and who the other guy with him might be. With 500m to go Bikila sprinted free and won, 25secs ahead and in a new world record. He was the first black African to win a gold medal at the Olympics - thereby setting a path that several generations of extraordinary athletes have followed.
Four years on and at the Tokyo Olympics Bikila again won, this time breaking free at around the halfway point and winning by a good four minutes ahead of GB silver medalist Basil Heatley - and again in a new world record. Even more extraordinary is that just 40 days before Bikila had emergency surgery for appendicitis so came into the race still recovering his fitness.
So quite an awe inspiring and motivating example for us and anyone else laid low at this time. Of course recovery from the virus is something of an unknown so we’ll be taking everything very cautiously and patiently (and we have a bit more than just 40 days to the next Olympics to prepare).
In the meantime we continue looking for more stories of inspiring legends - the photo at the top is of Italian cyclist Gino Bartali whose story we shared earlier this week in our most recent Coaching Call. Look him up and you’ll see why he is so special.
Please use the Comments box below to add your suggestions of who we could research and tell each other about - and give it a try yourself when you’re feeling everything is conspiring against you.
Keep safe and well - and lighting candles.