RB

U p the hill
www.hernehillharriers.org
RED&BLACK MAGAZINE
by
Herne Hill Harriers is a community athletics club that believes in diversity & is open to all.
The First Woman
I’m injured...
Juniors make the running
My best race, my worst race
Why do you run?
Broken records
How to accidentally break a record
1
2017 Spring & Summer iSSue
MeeT our
Outstanding
coaches


2
His Running My Running
Mid-autumn late autumn At dayfall in leaf-fall
A runner comes running.
How easy his striding How light his footfall His bare legs gleaming.
Alone he emerges Emerges and passes Alone, sufficient.
When Autumn was early Two runners came running Striding together
Shoulder to shoulder Pacing each other
A perfect pairing.
Out of leaves falling Over leaves fallen
A runner comes running
Aware of no watcher
His loneness my loneness His running my running.
By Robert Francis (1901-1987)
Reprinted with permission from Collected Poems, 1936-1976.
Copyright © 1976 by Robert Francis and published by the University of Massachusetts Press.


readY, seT, run
Welcome to the new Red&Black. These colours do run... and jump and throw. It’s about the people behind the performances of Herne Hill Harriers. That’s you. Inside you won’t find pages and pages of numbers from race and event reports (these are the stock in trade of our weekly electronic update, The Common Runner), but hopefully you will find out in a little more depth about each other and the sport you sweat hours over, athletics, loving and hating it, feeling like you’re dying and thriving. This edition is an experiment and I would love to hear your ideas for future features. Proposals will, of course, be treated as promises to write! Thank you to this edition’s contributors. They demonstrate what a fascinating, thoughtful and diverse bunch the Harriers are.
Community matters more than ever in a troubled world. And Herne Hill Harriers brings people together both as a physical South London community, but also as a community of common interest. It does so with a strong belief in diversity, and in being open to all. Whatever the many different reasons that bind us to our sport, there is some democracy of experience for all who take part. However fast or slow we are, the most elite athletes get beaten* and every runner beats someone else. We fret about personal bests and the aches and pains that hold us back (see our special ‘injury corner’ column inside). But the numbers game alone can’t explain why we do what we do. Perhaps it’s more because through our journey as sports people of all abilities, joined together
by Herne Hill Harriers’ community club, and catapulted into open air exertion in all seasons, that we become a little more in touch with ourselves, with
each other, and connected to the world around us. In other words, we have stumbled upon a better way of being in the world. Long may that continue.
Up the hill...
Andrew Simms
RED & BLACK MAGAZINE
Editorial | Andrew Simms | Email: [email protected] | twitter: @andrewsimms_UK
dESign, layoUt and Print | Words & Pictures | 8 Stoney lane, london SE19 3Bd | www.wordsandpictures.co.uk
*History note: this rule applies to everyone apart from the 1500m and mile runner, Herb Elliott, who was never beaten in world class, international competition, but you’re probably not him).
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Andrew Simms


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In PICTURE
There’s snow business
like cross country
Artist, illustrator and leading endurance runner in Herne Hill’s senior women’s team, Annes Stevens, remembers her chilly outing in Lloyd Park, Croydon.
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6
PEOPLE
The First
Woman
Herne Hill’s first woman athlete, SArAH ALLen, reflects on how far women’s running has come, progress still to be made, and the days before shorts
My association with Herne Hill Harriers goes back to before I was born. My father, Stan Allen, was invited to join the
club as a 17 year old school boy who ran 4m57s for a mile. Cross country, road races and track meetings were very much part of my early child hood. I spent every Saturday watching ‘Daddy run’. It was a wonderful way to grow up, meeting people ranging from the British 10,000m record holder to Olympic marathon runners, the first English man to long jump over 25 feet, and the Olympic British team captain (men’s that was!). It was like being born into one, huge family.
I began to train at Tooting Bec Track when
I was eight years old and it was still made of cinders. There were a few girls of my age and,
at the time, Selsonia was the ladies club. Herne Hill Harriers was ‘men only.’ So I joined Selsonia and was coached by Mr Robinson, his first name was George but you did not call him that. He was a wonderful man who instilled in us a good work ethic – warm up, warm down, arrive promptly. And, we had to adhere to his high standard,
or you did not train, let alone race. It was considered a privilege and not a right to be able
to train on the track. It was tough because we had to show that we deserved to be there, and to be accepted by the men who trained there.
Herne Hill Harriers only accepted women in 1976. Even then, many on the committee were against the idea. It seems strange now, but more equal treatment is very recent. Women were
not allowed to throw the hammer, do pole vault, triple jump, or steeplechase. And they did the heptathlon, which is only five events. Women did not race over 5000m, 3000m was the longest track event for us in local leagues until after
Liz McColgan won the 10,000m at the world championships. The Southern Track league only introduced a 5000m for women just a few years ago. Road racing too was very limited.
Change came at Herne Hill due to Ron Goby’s forward thinking. He agreed to be our Winter and Summer Team manager, taking the first
few of us to as many races as possible. He installed a caring and hard-working, but very much disciplined ethic into those few years. We had to establish ourselves as being serious and committed to our sport just as much as the men were. Ron started the Ladies Surrey League


Sarah allen, third from the left, top row
forty years ago so that local women could be introduced to the joys of cross country racing. I remember the very first league races, there was only three to score then, and I was third scorer.
WHAt, no SHortS?
We didn’t have shorts when I first began to run, only racing knickers, none of the variety that you can purchase today, and no leggings just heavy track suits that got heavier and heavier when it rained. Our shoes were very basic, but there weren’t the amount of injuries I see today. Neither were there the heart rate monitors, race apps, gels, and the thermal base layers, but somehow we survived and just loved what we did, we just ran.
I learned so much about racing and training from my second coach, my father, Stan Allen. When I joined HHH I began to train with his
all men’s group. It felt like a natural move from training with Selsonia. I completed the same sessions as the rest of the group whereas before that sometimes ladies only did half of what the men were doing.
I have watched as women achieved parity in road races, and on the track, but not yet in cross country.
Now, as a master I am still only allowed to run four miles in cross country and as a senior the maximum is five miles, even though on the road women can race over a marathon
and beyond.
“It was tough because we had to show that we deserved to be there, and to be accepted by the men who trained there. “
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8
PEOPLE
100 up!
GLen KeeGAn’s marathon madness is under control, no honestly it is...
The marathon madness began when I turned 40, it was mid-life crisis time. I’d always dreamed of taking part in
a marathon, and knew it was now or never. Number one was in Dublin in 2004. Even after six months of training, the last few miles were painfully hard and I struggled to make it up the stairs of the plane on the flight home.
The next few were 6 months apart as I battled down my personal best. Then when training for the Grand Union Canal 145 mile non-stop race, I got bored of long runs on my own so decided to enter marathons every weekend – they provided company and aid stations. Much to my surprise the more marathons I ran, the quicker my body seemed to recover. So, I entered 4 in 4 days, and then 7 in 7 days. And more shocking to me still was the training effect. I was faster on the last day than I was on the first, and a lot thinner.
My final downfall, as often happens, occurred when I fell in with a bad crowd. I now had mates that had run many hundreds of marathons, one more than a thousand. I succumbed to peer pressure and after running 32 in 12 months I reached my 100th in May 2016.
Of all of the 100 races my top 3 would be:
• The Grand Union Canal 145 miles non-stop
race, mentioned above. I loved this, as it had
been my ambition to run it for years. I was supported by fellow Herne Hill Harriers Ben Halifax and Rupert Cavenagh-Mainwaring. It was a great team event, with each of them running a number of 20 mile plus stretches with me.
• The Tooting Bec 24 hour race – 440 laps
of the track – has to be next. It was a great local event with my dad crewing and fellow Harriers turning up throughout the night to shout support. I remember lapping the track as people arrived for the regular club Sunday run and I was still going when they got back. By this stage sleep deprivation made me slightly crazy. I had no idea what was going. Stan Allen was screaming at me from the side lines to keep pushing on.
• Then there was the Namibian dessert challenge: 5 marathons in 5 days across the desert. This was special for me because I am not good at running in the heat, and with


glen Keegan working up a 100 marathon sweat
“What’s the most weird or bizarre thing you’ve encountered during a marathon?– That’s easy, other runners”
temperatures up in the 40s it was, as the name suggests, a real challenge. The scenery was stunning including a run up one of the biggest sand dunes in the world, known as “Big Daddy” 325m high. There was wildlife running past us and jackals sniffing round
the tent as we tried to sleep.
But they could all be like that. My least favourite was seven laps of a lake in Milton Keynes. An evening race, it was my second marathon of the day and I was getting terrible calf cramps, but was determined to finish. It took 6:30 hours but seemed much, much longer . . .
I have been asked “What’s the most weird
or bizarre thing you’ve encountered during a marathon?” That’s easy, other runners. Runners can be a strange lot at the best of times, but those that choose to run multiple marathons are lovely, and I have loads of great friends, but some are really quite out there . . . (names redacted: Ed)
The habit is now under control, honestly it
is, but I’m still running at least one marathon a month and I may have entered 4 x 100 milers this year. I really enjoy every one, and long may it continue . . .
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10
ROUnD-UP
WHY I RUN
gary ironmonger
national indoors Masters 800m champion, gary ironmonger, looking a lot younger than his number 200
A simple question which generated much thought (often while out running). The obvious health benefits are improved cardio vascular fitness which give a general feeling of healthiness. Even as you put yourself through the pain barrier of a Tuesday track session it still feels as though you are doing some good. Doing these sessions as a group is a great way of ensuring that the burden of this pain is shared.
Group sessions and team racing promotes camaraderie that is inspiring. That camaraderie transcends the club and extends to all runners. Post running visits to the pub also provide a good social atmosphere.
Individual training sessions can frequently involve a lot of thinking. Sometimes this is visualising race performance but mainly it is about current issues especially political ones. Having room to think also promotes health by maintaining an active mind. This all leads to a simple answer. I run to keep healthy and happy.


ROUnD-UP
The London Running Diary of Sven Fartlek, visiting Scandinavian athlete
SvEN FARtLEK
Hello! My name is Sven Fartlek. I like to run.
I come to South London for the first time from my village Lilla Röven outside Gothenberg. I have lycklig fot (‘happy feet’- editor) to be running with you.
Things are very different here. At home we mostly run through trees. Half our country is covered in them. Here I think you are mostly running to the shops? I read half your country is covered in them, and there are plans to cover the other half with more? When we run must be careful not to fall over trädrötter (‘tree roots’).
I think when you run you must be careful not
to fall into enormous consumer debt? We are very simple. We put on shoes and go for a run. But my new London friends tell me here you must carry a satellite receiver on your wrist and attach a heart monitor to your chest. I worry this
will make me feel like I am always in hospital. Anyway, I am learning your ways.
My new running friends took me to a traditional post-running celebration in a pub – I think they called it ‘getting blattered’ – it was a new thing
for me. Everyone complained about the price of drinks, but I told them in Sweden it is four times more expensive. It was a trevlig kväll (happy evening) and I have the bakfylla (hangover) to prove it. Then my friends said I must go to the Parliament Hill across the country. But I was confused because there was no Parliament and it wasn’t across the country, just north of the river. It was full of snuvig (snuffly) runners with faces like blixt och dunder (thunder and lightning). Maybe I will run it next time, but it looked a little short and flat compared to my warm-up run back in Lilla Röven. Till next time.
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InTERVIEW
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Chloe tighe, third from left, with left-to-right, Steph Mitchell, Helena Corbin and Hannah Edwards


Welcome Track
What was it like for CHLoe tiGHe landing among Herne Hill Harriers from Australia?
When I first moved to London it was the Tooting Parkrun that triggered my entry into Herne Hill Harriers’ famous running club. One of
the well known members, and now good friend, Steph Mitchell introduced herself, and insisted I come for a training session at the Common.
It was that interaction which started my current love affair with Herne Hill Harriers. My first training session was a standard Tuesday night. It consisted of twelve, one minute fast reps, which I just managed to struggle through. Little did I know of the sessions that were ahead... That night, I remember being amazed at the number of enthusiastic runners who were so keen to be in their flouro-lycra in
a chilling 6 degrees. The session highlighted to me a few things:
1) Londoners weren’t deterred by the chilly weather 2) Good banter
and lycra were a must and, 3) It was a great group, led by a very passionate coach, Geoff!
Now, 12 months on since joining the group, my experience with Herne Hill Harriers has been, to it put simply, pure joy. I never thought that moving to London would ever enable me to strap my spikes back on, and look forward to completing a hard session in the pouring rain or fog early on a Saturday morning. However the Harriers have done just that. It has provided me with the joy of running again, something which had been missing since my serious junior Years in Australia. For that, I am very grateful. Now on my weekends I look forward to putting on the renowned red and black vest, and competing in unfamiliar territory against hundreds of other athletes who share the same passion.
Joining the Harriers and following Geoff’s guidance I have gained
so much more than just a good foundation of fitness, but also a great knowledge of fantastic pubs around London! The friendly culture embedded in the training group,
is the charm that has brought so many great people together. It has the perfect balance of good quality training, complemented by just
as many laughs at the pub after, celebrating the small success of every person. That’s something which is very special.
Finally, as a result of being apart of this wonderful group, and under the guidance of Geoff, I’ve once again been motivated enough to set goals and look ahead to what
I could possibly achieve on the running track. This is largely due to the positive attitude of those around me, and being lifted by their passion for running. Now, I look forward to more races, more mud, and more chilly nights in the common in the year ahead.
“The friendly culture embedded in the training group, is the charm that has brought so many great people together. ”
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14
COLUMn
rIck’s kIT Bag
rick Pearson ponders running fashions in thoughts and things
Iwrite this column clad head-to- toe in compression gear, chowing down a low-carb lunch and
listening to a podcast from Clean Eating Alice about the benefits of baobab. I’ll be putting up a picture of it on Instagram later. #HumbleBrag.
I’m being facetious, of course, but it’s undeniable that running – once the simplest and cheapest of sports – has been made complicated and expensive by ever-changing fads and fashions.
A few years back, it was the Barefoot Bubble. This saw an alarming number of middle-class wallies (myself included) attempt
to channel their inner Tarahumara Indian by kicking off their running shoes and taking to the streets sans shoes. Naturally, it didn’t work – not least because the Tarahumara don’t actually run barefoot but in thick “huaraches” (sandals) made from tyres. And, before you ask, there’s been an huaraches fad, too.
The pendulum has since swung the other way, leading to a trend
in maximalism. This doesn’t mean buying as many trainers as possible – although that’s also popular among runners – but buying shoes with more cushion than a sofa. This might make sense if you’re running an ultra-marathon, but the popularity of Hokas among the 5-miles-a-week brigade seems risible.
On the subject of mileage, that’s another area where confusion reigns. I last year spoke with Brian Mackenzie, the heavily tattooed founder of Crossfit, who assured
me that “muscle could replace mileage” when it came to marathon training. “Look at people when they cross the finish line at a marathon,” he sermoned. “They’re not out of breath; they’re broken down.” I was sold. Out went the mileage and in came a bizarre DIY strength-training programme. When I compared last year’s marathon time against those of my fellow Herne Hillers, my one consolation was the knowledge that I probably would have won a chin-up competition against any of them.
And then there’s nutrition. To
gel or not to gel? Is fat fantastic or are carbs still king? If I eat a meal and no one is around to take an Instagram picture of it, does it really
exist? The most popular foodie fad
at present is probably fat-adapted running. The theory goes, human beings only have a limited amount
of glycogen stores (enough for about 90 minutes of running) but our fat reserves are near endless. Therefore, the smart runner learns to use fat
as a fuel. Avocado and nut butter companies are naturally loving this news. But the fat-as-fuel approach is somewhat undermined by the fact East Africans, who eat a very high- carb diet, are rather quick, while Joe “Lean in 15” Wicks is slower than a week in jail.
So there you have it. Modern running: a minefield of misinformation. I mean, it’s enough to make you want to leave it all behind, head to the Copper Canyons and run free with the Tarahumara. Hey, have you heard what those guys wear on their feet?


COLUMn
I’M InJured...
The physio is in, Sue SWAine’s rules for a good recovery come from professional knowledge and hard-won personal experience
The words every runner dreads having to say out loud. It is no longer “just a niggle”,
“an ache” or a “tight muscle” that you can run-through. It means cancelling upcoming races, putting PB plans on hold and adapting your routine for the next few weeks or months. Over the last four years I have been dealt a good few injuries. Patellofemoral pain (also known
as runner’s knee, or anterior knee pain) kept me off running for over 6 months. I have been struggling with hamstring tendinopathy (pain where the hamstring attaches just below the buttock) for almost two years. Initially I couldn’t run at all, then I was able to slowly increase the mileage, but needed so much patience I thought it would never get better. These have been interspersed with calf strains, foot pain and blisters (not sure if they count?).
Whatever the injury, the same pattern always arises: denial – keep running through it, frustration, then eventually acceptance. I remember being devastated when I first got injured in 2012. Now though I quickly switch to just getting on with it mode. Worse things can happen. I am a physiotherapist working in trauma and limb reconstruction; I see patients on the brink of losing their leg or with other seriously
life-changing injuries every day. A bit of pain in my hamstring doesn’t really come close – who am I to complain?
So here are a few tips for coping with being injured:
rule # 1: Seek professional advice. Getting a proper diagnosis will mean you can start doing the right things to make it better as soon
as possible. I am obviously biased but being assessed by a qualified physiotherapist will give you an idea of how long you might take to mend, identify what the underlying cause of the problem is, and most importantly how to fix it.
rule # 2: Do what you need to do
to get the injury better. Few injuries get better with rest alone, with the exception of stress fractures. Once you have a diagnosis you can start your rehabilitation. This might involve stretching, strengthening exercises, sports massage etc. These are boring and often painful, but if you want to resume running you have got to put in some time and effort to get better. The rehab will not only make the injury go away but will also make you a stronger more efficient runner.
rule # 3: Cross train. Find another form of exercise you enjoy/can
tolerate to maintain your fitness and release some endorphins. Cross- training will make a difference when you come back to running as you won’t be starting from scratch. I hate the gym, so going to the
gym when injured just makes me miss running more. I swim with a competitive swimming club and enter swimming competitions which I wouldn’t do whilst running. I also compete in triathlons so increasing my cycling, my weakest discipline, is never a bad thing.
Finally rule #4: Put it in perspective – everyone gets injured. Running races are not going to go away and neither are your running friends. Stay in touch rather than bury yourself in a hole. I always enjoy going to watch races even when I can’t compete, after all it is rare you get to stand on the sidelines and shout abuse at your team mates!
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Back in form natasha lodge drives uphill in the cross country season
16
ExPERIEnCE
unbroken
nAtASHA LoDGe from injury to finding form again
Being told to take time out is never something a runner wants to hear. It’s frustrating and often demoralising and
most of us will run for as long as possible until the problem can’t be ignored any longer. We are then forced to accept that for the next few months we won’t be racing, upping our Garmin miles or getting our fix of endorphins.
On the surface of it, the months taken out appear to be the hard part. When told to take nine months off due to bursitis in my hip I suddenly realised I was no longer that indestructible junior runner who could train every day and still have energy left at the end of it. In reality, however, the test arrives when it’s time to return. The greatest obstacle when coming back from injury was my head. I knew I was significantly less fit than I had been, but the thought of seeing that proved in
a training session was hard to face. My aerobic fitness had inevitably changed, my muscles were not as strong, and my socialising abilities had significantly dropped.
Having not trained with HHH for five years I was spared the difficulty of finding myself in a different place in the group. However, after so long out it took a lot of determination to walk through the track gates back into the club. It
felt a bit like coming off a boat back on to dry land – a relief but also rather disorientating. I only knew a handful of people and I had to learn to run again in a way that wouldn’t re-injure me. I had to up my cadence which required thinking, not something I do regularly while running. I was nervous while at the same time keen to push myself as hard as possible from the start. Neither of which were helpful. Suddenly I had to listen
to my body – a novel thought – and appreciate that regaining fitness was a slow affair. Although
“I was no longer that indestructible junior runner who could train every day and still have energy left at
the end of it.”
returning to a group was daunting it made all the difference – having people around to push and to distract me helped getting through the first few tough sessions.
If I could go back I would not repeat the time off – it was awful, (50 lengths of a swimming pool is not the same, however hard I tried to convince myself otherwise.)
Time off has made me appreciate running a lot more, it’s made me take time to stretch and strengthen certain muscles, and it has made me listen to my body. So maybe I would repeat it, after all.


Well-SeaSoned
What went well over the last season for the people who help keep Herne HiLL HArrierS running, jumping and throwing...
Steve KniGHt
• Being in the queue at Sainsbury’s, noticing Jaden Kennedy in another
one with his parent and turning round
to my wife and saying with absolute certainty, ‘in 8 years’ time we will be watching that kid win an Olympic medal’.
• Watching 15 year old Alex Brown destroying the senior women’s field in the Surrey League match.
• Having watched my group going so well for weeks on end and having a no-race Saturday,
I suggested that they were ready for some parkrun PBs. Nine ran on the Saturday, coming up with nine PBs.
StuArt tHurGooD
Despite a generally quiet year in the
sport I was particularly pleased with
my 16.38m 35lbs weight throw at the
European Indoor Masters Champs in
Ancona Italy at the start of 2016 in April. It
was the second furthest I have thrown that weight in an overseas championship, even though it was only good enough for 4th place on the day, behind possibly the highest standard masters Weight Throw competition of its kind. It was a privilege to witness and nice to be a part of.
Steve BoSLey
• HHH U13 boys winning
National road relays at
Sutton Park Birmingham
– it’s always heartening to
see the red and black hoops
performing superbly at national championships and last October our under 13 boys team won, a great reward for all the athletes, parents and coaches involved.
• HHH youngsters runners running in the Olympic Stadium in the 4 x 100m races prior
to the Anniversary Games in front of 30,000- 40,000 people. It was a great experience for the young athletes, parents and coaches, we had teams in U13, 15, 17 and U20 boys and girls races.
JAmeS mCDonALD
There was a time when my
athletes were literally the
laughing stock of the Middle
Distance/Cross Country world
and to see two of my Under 13
Athletes, Jaden Kennedy and Maisie Collis top the National rankings as well as winning their respective national Inter Counties races, gave me tremendous satisfaction.
COaCh nOTEs
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18
COaCh nOTEs
WALDy PAuzerS
• Watching the South of England
Vets XC Championships
M40 race was hard to beat: I
remember waiting in the field at
the start of the second lap and saw
Simon Coombes, Ben Paviour and John Kettle emerging from the Horspath woods as a close pack in 6th, 7th and 8th position. That group was still almost the same after the second lap and into the finish, stamping a team gold win and there was dominance throughout the race with a further four quality HHH athletes closing it out And that after we had already won M50 team golds in the first race.
• Despite ‘only’ an overall 2nd place at the Southern Vets T&F Club championship, this great team competition always has to be the veteran’s season’s highlight. And on a personal note, I am just grateful to be training and racing consistently after several months of injury. HHH Men and Women veterans have a great deal to aspire to in 2017, and it is within their grasp!
Dr LeS JoHnSon
Coaching the England
Athletics under 20 South
team at an International
meet. Taking Ore Adamson
to National indoor and Outdoor
Long Jump Gold, Daniella
Henderson to English Schools Javelin Gold and Kristal Awuah to 100m English Schools Gold, also Faith Price to win the Daily Mirror Young Sports Person of the Year and IAAF video profile.
GeoFF JerWooD
As a HHH senior men’s
and women’s team
manager in both summer
and winter as well as coach
to one of our senior middle
and long distance groups it would be almost invidious for me to single out just one individual performance of an athlete as a highlight. I did say “almost”, and for that reason I am going
for two! In no particular order, I go for the England Athletics and National Inter-Counties Championship 5000m bronze medal won by Stacey Ward at Bedford at the end of July, not for the medal itself, as fine an achievement as that is, but for bouncing back after adversity in what had until then been a disappointing season, for producing the goods in the biggest race when
it most mattered. My second selection is from a smaller competition, but representing an HHH club team at a Southern Athletics League fixture in Eastbourne in mid-June, where Chloe Tighe lapped almost the entire field in her first 3000m track race of the season, reeling off laps at a superbly consistent rate of knots to record 9
min 31.2 seconds, breaking the ground record and one of the fastest times clocked by an HHH female athlete. Uplifting stuff from both women.
tom ConLon
Difficult to choose between
Alex Brown becoming the
youngest ever Surrey League
‘Senior’ winner at 16, Jaden
Kennedy’s phenomenal
running and records throughout
the year or Sean Fitzpatrick setting a Guinness World record for the “Fastest marathon in film character costume” (Elsa from Frozen) in 2:39.09.


Herne Hill Harriers Hall of acclaim
The full list of awards from the annual presentation evening
BESt PERFoRMANCE AWARDS
U13 GIRLS: Maisie Collis, nationally ranked 9th 800m, 2nd 1200m,
3rd 1500m, Surrey County champion 1500m
U13 BoyS: Jaden Kennedy, nationally ranked 1st 800m and 1500m, Surrey County 1500m champion, set times for 800m and 1500m which placed him in top 10 all time for Under 13 boys
U15 GIRLS: ore Adamson, national U15 girls long jump champion ranked, no. 1 in country, unbeaten in championships during 2016
U15 BoyS: Isaiah olusanya, ranked 17th / 19th in country 100m / 200m, finished 5th in junior boys English Schools 200m final
U17 WoMEN: Alex Brown, ranked 9th in 1500m, 2nd English schools 1500m final, selected for England Schools in international match
U17 MEN: Alfred Mawdsley, nationally ranked 13th discus, 2nd English schools inter boys discus, selected for England Schools in international match
U20 WoMEN: Krystal Awuah, won English schools senior girls 100m ranked 17th in national rankings
U20 MEN: Billy Black, 2nd in Southern counties 800m final at ashford 1.54.92
GIRLS ovER CRoSS CoUNtRy: Alex Brown, finished 2nd in national cross country championships, 2nd in Southern champs, 5th in English Schools
BoyS ovER CRoSS CoUNtRy: oscar Millard, finished 9th in English Schools junior boys race in March 2016
SENIoR MEN ovER CRoSS CoUNtRy: Alan Barnes vEtS MEN: Stuart thurgood
vEtS WoMEN: Sharon St Luce
SENIoR MEN: Gavin Assoon Johnson
SENIoR WoMEN: Katie Snowden
BESt 5000M SENIoR MEN: Niall Sheehan FAStESt MEN’S 800M: Eric Sapac FAStESt WoMEN’S 800M: Katie Snowden
DAvID WhEELER tRoPhIES FoR BESt yoUNG thRoWING PERFoRMANCES:
girls: Danielle henderson, 1st in English Schools inter girls javelin Boys: Alfred Mawdsley, 2nd in English Schools inter boys
AKAPLARA tRoPhy yoUNG AthLEtES ShoWING CLUB SPIRIt:
Ben and Jacob harrison
MoSt IMPRovED AthLEtE
Boys: tiarnan Matthews, shot, ranked 343 in 2015 and ranked 11th nationally in 2016
girls: Mallory Cluely, 75 m hurdles, ranked 222nd in 2015 and 16th nationally in 2016
SPECIAL AWARDS: Relay teams
MEN’S M60 4 x 800M, British best times
U13 BoyS, national road relays champions, 2nd national XC relays, SEaa xc relay champions
U13 BoyS, Surrey cross country league winners
U13 GIRLS, 2nd national xc relays, SEaa xc champions
U17 WoMEN, 2nd national xc relays, 3rd national road relays SEaa xc champions
U13 BoyS 4x 100M, nationally ranked 4th Surrey County champions 4 x 100m/4x 200m
U13 GIRLS 4 x 100M, nationally ranked 6th Surrey County 4 x100m champions
U15 GIRLS 4 x 100M, nationally ranked 8th Surrey County 4 x100m champions
U17 WoMEN 4 x 100M nationally ranked 6th
SENIoR WoMEN’S CRoSS CoUNtRy tEAM, bronze medalists in the
SEaa cross country championships
SPECIAL AWARD to Glen Keegan for 100 marathons
SPECIAL thANK yoU award to Deborah Ballinger Mills & Barbara Macanas for their work in getting officials for our track and field meetings
6 StAR hERNE hILL AChIEvEMENt Cindy Godwin and Mandy Brown completed the tokyo marathon on Sunday 26 February to become six star runners. the abbott World Marathon Majors is a series of six of the most renowned marathons in the world: new york, london, Berlin, Chicago, Boston, and tokyo. less than 1,000 people have earned the title of Six Star Finisher to date.
hERNE hILL hARRIERS NAtIoNAL CRoSS CoUNtRy U13BoyS ChAMPIoN
Jaden Kennedy ran the race of his young life at the national Cross Country. He was pushed hard all the way in an extremely fast race on a muddy, sticky course. Jaden also ensured that his Herne
Hill Harriers team mates, Christo Chilton Jacob
and Benjamin harrison won team Silver.
19


20
ExPERIEnCE
The adventures of StePH mitCHeLL – the first in a series of athlete’s experiences of competition
My best race, my worst race
To set the scene I am an 800m runner who used to compete a lot when I was younger. I’ve got back into racing competitively in
the last few seasons and I am now in the process of trying to turn my “adult PBs” back into “real PBs”; so...
...my best race of last season:
SeAA inter CountieS meetinG At BASinGStoKe JuLy 2016.
I was fortunate to be selected to represent Surrey in the Southern Inter Counties in the 800m. But the day did not start off as a ‘good race day’. My coach Geoff and I had gravely misjudged the weather. It was not, in fact, sunny or warm as
you would expect for a summer weekend, but miserable, cold and raining. On top of that, during my warm up a hurdle blew (yes BLEW) across the track, so it’s fair to say that it was also ridiculously windy – and not just in that: “so I can justify why I had a slow race” excuse kind of way. In addition, I was not the original first choice for Surrey, but as
the uninjured next best runner, I ended up on the day being put in the A-string race against women who normally have all finished their races before I reach 50m to go.
As a consequence I went into the race with
zero expectations (or, indeed, pressure on myself – remember that, it’s a key word for later). When the gun went I kept relaxed and I ran my own race in the first lap. I didn’t let the others get
too far ahead but I also didn’t push myself to go faster than I knew was right for me. This meant that although I was in last place at the bell, unlike some of the others, I went into the back straight of the second lap with the strength and confidence to be able to step it up. And I did, catching up and picking off half of the girls to come down the home straight in the lead pack, finishing only a few seconds behind the winner. That day I beat several girls who can all run much faster than me, and I executed the race perfectly in my terms. Unfortunately the wind (honestly it was really blowing) did make the time irrelevant, but Geoff said to me afterwards that this was the equivalent


to a “real PB” race for me, and the best he had seen me run.
...my worst race of last season: tHe roSenHeim FinAL At tootinG AuGuSt 2016.
The build up to this race was completely the opposite of the above: relaxed atmosphere, home track, it was nice and warm, and there were lots of supporters to cheer me on. It was also a race that I was the favourite to win and the fastest on paper. However, despite the good conditions and me being the best athlete, I did not win it.
All I could think about before the race was: that I should win, (but the other women actually looked better than me); that I should get a good time because the conditions were right; and
that I needed to do well because everyone was watching. The consequence was also the total opposite to the above. I did not run my own race. I did not stay relaxed. And, I was totally psyched- out by the unnecessary pressure I put on myself
“That day I beat several girls who can all run much faster than me, and I executed the race perfectly in my terms”
(see, that word again). I let a girl pull ahead and I left it too late to catch her.
It was pants and I stomped-off in a grump after (as all respectable mature adults do). As Geoff correctly said to me, once I was safe to approach, I lost that race in my head before it started.
The moral of the story is, then: do not underestimate the importance of what goes on in your head before a race. Learning how to manage your mind-set is as important training!
all smiles when things go right, Steph Mitchell sports the Herne Hill anniversary t-shirt during training
21


22
LEaRnIng
Joining the
What I have learned from coaching at Herne Hill Harriers, by mArK WHite
It was almost a personal best (PB) – only a few tenths of a second away – but Steph Mitchell wasn’t
satisfied. She wanted more. She believed she could do better. I knew that too as I had watched her run the 800m for Surrey County that day in Crawley in 2015 and saw that she wasn’t running well, not her normal self. That seemed to be that for the day but then the team manager needed someone to run the 1500m, and Steph immediately volunteered.
But there was a problem – she was tightening up after the 800m.
I had hunch what was wrong and suggested she try a new theraband exercise (basically, stretching with a giant rubber band) to activate the hip muscles and bring back her hip mobility. As I watched nervously from the stands I wondered,
would it work? As a coach, you
can give your input, offer words of encouragement but then there is nothing more you can do. The gun fired and they sped down the back straight and immediately I got the impression she looked different. By the end of the first lap I was sure and the lap time proved it – already a few seconds up! Her running
stayed strong and she kept it going, finishing in 4:53.93, a PB at the time by 2.5 seconds.
It was a great result and well deserved, a reward too for selflessly volunteering to help the team out. Time and again Steph has put the team first and she stands as an example to all athletes. She has taught me many things as a coach, showing what is possible, what can be achieved. There was a time in the past when I would have advised against trying to do something. I would look at the numbers, think about the science and conclude that, no, bad idea, don’t do it. But she has shown me that more is often possible. Of course, there have been times when pushing further really was too much, where athlete and coach need to trust one another.
inFormAtion everyWHere
What I have learned as coach is that you take in information from many different sources: it’s from your athletes, as much as from books and magazine, from trial and error, finding the approach that works. I had thought before becoming a coach that you first
needed to learn as much as you can and get as much experience as possible. What I hadn’t appreciated was that as a coach the rate of learning accelerates. There are so many more information sources, the experiences of each athlete and not just your own. Every session you can learn something, see how well it worked, how the group as whole coped, of how individuals responded.
I am still guided by science and see those various inputs, objective or subjective, as supporting or rejecting certain notions and ideas about training. It is then a voyage of discovery, of continually updating and revising theories as to what works and what doesn’t. Science doesn’t have all the answers and in many ways it tries to catch up with latest coaching thinking. Blending those two together seems to be the best way forward.
When I started out coaching 3 years ago, I had two ideas that were going to guide my thinking. The first was to bring in pacing tables to make the training sessions more consistent and effective. The second was to bring in the latest ideas from functional training –
VdoTs


https://runsmartproject.com/calculator/
building strength and flexibility – to help runners improve and maintain their form for longer so that they can fully realise their potential.
I brought in Jack Daniels’ VDOT system (a way of measuring aerobic capacity to guide training speeds over different distances) to give people a guideline time or pace so that they wouldn’t run the reps too fast and be unable to sustain the intensity throughout the workout, which would have curtailed the effective volume of the session. What matters is time and intensity: get the doses right and the training will have its effect. You don’t need to run yourself into the ground in
Mark White applying running science to his own performance
training – leave the really big efforts for racing.
ProGreSS trACKinG
That was at the outset, but I hadn’t foreseen the other benefits it would bring as the idea took hold in the group. The VDOT system gave me the means for tracking everyone’s progress and assessing their performances, allowing
me to recognise and celebrate achievements across all abilities. It wasn’t just the fast people who would be noticed but everyone would. Any race could be graded and a VDOT determined. Having their own personal VDOT number
gave people the motivation to raise it and compare themselves with others. Membership of the sub- groups was then based purely on merit – the VDOT set the standard.
It wasn’t perfect though. It didn’t seem to do a good job of setting
the training paces for the slower runners who found the guideline pace too slow. The VDOT was determined from race performances but it wasn’t truly reflecting their aerobic capacity. Their race times were not as fast as what would be suggested in training. Why was that? They were trying as hard as anyone else. I concluded that they must become less mechanically
23


Mark White’s
top 5
running books
1
DANIELS’ RUNNING FoRMULA
by Jack daniels
th2E SCIENCE oF RUNNING
by Steve Magness
th3E ARt oF RUNNING FAStER by Julian goater
RU4NNING to thE toP
by arthur lydiard
BE5ttER tRAINING FoR DIStANCE RUNNERS
by david Martin
& Peter Coe
24
LEaRnIng
efficient over the course of the race – it was costing them more oxygen to maintain the same pace and since they were at their limit they would have to slow down. It struck me then that the VDOT system assumes a fixed running economy. The only thing for it was to adjust the training intensities by artificially raising VDOT values.
inner StrenGtH
This realisation reinforced my second idea that many people were not realising their potential because they lacked the internal, postural strength to maintain form throughout the race. I brought in all those functional exercises at the start of sessions that aimed
to develop self-awareness, co- ordination, mobility and strength, the qualities of movement that are so often neglected in the everyday metropolitan life of working adults.
I was keen to promote this as I felt the slower runners would benefit most of all, but time is always limited. Ten minutes on a Tuesday or a Thursday was about all that could be fitted in. The functional exercise sessions on Saturdays seemed to work best of all but people need convincing that ‘it is
for them’. At Loughborough where I am now studying, they have two functional exercise sessions every week so it’s nice to know I’m on the right lines. Perhaps this is something for the future at Herne Hill.
Which brings me back to that theraband exercise for Steph. I
was excited for her but also for having evidence from her example that shows this stuff really works.
It can improve the way we run by activating lazy muscles and relaxing other muscles that are too tight, thereby freeing up the hips and making them more powerful and stable. The theory sounds good, but as I have found in practice as
a coach, it doesn’t always work. It does depend on the athlete’s own self-awareness and diligence in regularly practising these exercises. As a coach, I am looking for ways to better improve the application of this idea.
That is the way of coaching: always looking for improvements, synthesizing science with experience, revising theories, working with and learning from athletes. We need more coaches in this club. There is much to learn and much reward.
“ It does depend on the athlete’s own self-awareness and diligence in regularly practising these exercises.”


Back on Track
How Herne Hill Harriers helped rAJ PArAnAnDi pull his trainers on again
COLUMn
My journey as a runner began rather strangely – on a Monday morning, with an
embarrassing phone call and an emergency visit to the shops.
In 2000 I was living in the US and had just returned to New York after my best friend’s stag weekend in Edinburgh. That Monday morning, after a weekend of gluttony and excess, I found to my horror that none of the eight pairs of trousers that I owned would fit me any longer. Hence the embarrassing phone call to my boss.
“Joe, I’m sorry but I’m going to be late today”
“OK, why?”
“Well, I’m so fat that none of my trousers fit”
“You’re being a bit strange, Raj” “Thanks. See you at around 11am”
A sedentary lifestyle and too much socialising had taken its toll and the accretive impact upon
my waistline could no longer be ignored. That evening, I signed up at the local gym. I started slowly, very slowly, with 12-minute miles on the treadmill. I started to run every other day, and then 5 times a week, and then a little more quickly, and over the summer
that followed I managed to lose 40 pounds. Running became an obsession. More than the health
benefits, I loved the glorious feeling of isolation. The chance to do something for 45 minutes or an hour without interruption was a pan- acea in a world where technology was becoming ubiquitous.
Fast forward the clock 16 years and I faced a similar challenge. This time, weight wasn’t the issue. I’d run pretty consistently over
the intervening period, clocking
up several thousand miles, 6 marathons and taking a pair of trainers with me wherever I went. But my running mojo had gone.
I’d had an 18 month cycle of very frequent back injuries, coupled with a stressful job and compounded
by a lack of free time. I couldn’t motivate myself to run more than twice a week and when I did, I was going through the motions.
So I decided to surrender to the power of the collective and join Herne Hill Harriers. A quick google search told me that the group met on Tuesdays and Thursdays and so I showed up in September on Tooting Bec Common to be put through my paces.
It was a humbling experience –
I ran my hardest in that first session but felt like a stray go-kart that
had erroneously been entered into a race with a group of F1 cars.
I was so far off the back of the group that I was barely in touch
(as a Birmingham City fan, this is a familiar sensation). But it motivated me to keep coming and four months later I can just about keep pace. In that period I have also run my first cross country race since
I was 14 years old – and this time I didn’t cheat by skipping a lap, nor did I have a cigarette mid-way through the race.
Interestingly, it’s also made me rethink my perspective about running being a solitary pursuit. There’s a tremendous sense of camaraderie amongst the group, a real sense of pleasure in each other’s achievements and the maturity to recognise that we’re all striving to achieve a personal set of goals, despite the wide range
of our abilities. None of this would be possible, of course, without the indomitable Geoff Jerwood, the coach whose energy, enthusiasm and stories about Millwall are boundless.
25


26
COLUMn
tHINgs tHat bUg RUNNeRs...
the doghouse
When the world gets in the way, AnDreW SimmS on how things conspire in occasionally inexplicable ways to make simple sports hard
Ilike dogs. I’m a dog person. With their uncomplicated emotional life, I think having them around makes a complex world generally
a slightly better place. But there is one thing about our four legged friends that bewilders me. While humans hear in the range of 12 Hz to 20 kHz, dogs’ range is much greater, from 40Hz to 60kHz. They can pick up sounds over distances four times further than us. When it comes to smell, the olfactory cortex in a dog is around
40 times bigger than ours, but their actual sensitivity to smell is even greater, in some breeds expressed in the multiple millions.
They can also differentiate far more types of smell – reportedly up to 100,000 while we can only manage up to about a tenth of that. How this is known I am not quite sure, I’ve only ever heard dogs bark, howl, whimper, and once growl what sounded like the word ‘sausages’ on TV.
I’d be fascinated to hear an articulate canine assessment of a sweaty athlete – ‘I’m picking up earthy tones of hay mould, yesterday’s curry & the chemical rush of deep heat...’
When it comes to sight, it seems they are not quite as superior, having the kind of red-green colour blindness experienced by some people. It’s
also possible that they see more blur than we do. However,
they do have a kind of
night vision, you can
dark. And they can also see motion better than we can – reportedly being able to distinguish their owners at a distance of 900m.
You may be wondering by now where this idle, inter-species comparison is going. It’s because
I want to know the answer to a question. Why, why, WHY, with all their vastly advanced senses – their super, alien-like abilities to hear sounds we find inaudible, detect smells we cannot
even imagine, and see distinctive movements invisible to human eyes – why, when all this is the case, do dogs on Tooting Common, time after time after time, blunder obliviously into your path at the precise moment you happen to be running passed? How, does this happen?
Once, on a run last year, I dodged and hurdled random dogs throwing themselves under my feet like bluebottles with a death wish at car windscreens on the motorway. The fourth time I ran out of luck, literally, and was sent flying by a black Labrador that chose
to abuse or ignore it’s natural gifts like Rod Stewart or Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins in their prime (historical cultural reference). I was breathing like a steam train, had a 5 mile sweat,
and was loping along like a wild boar – how can the sensory miracle of evolution that
is a dog’s brain, not join the dots and move – out – of – the – way. Could a
‘runner awareness’ module please be introduced to the core
curriculum at puppy training school?
➤ let us know what gets your goat for future issues.
tell that by how their
eyes light up in
torch beam in the
a


Broken records
How niKKi SturzAKer accidentally discovered she’d set Herne Hill’s one hour women’s record
How bad can it be? It’s only an hour after all. No sooner will the gun go to start the race
than it will go again to call us to a standstill. How did I know that each one of those 60 torturous minutes would, in turn, slow down to a pace like watching paint dry? Each minute mocking you as it tiptoed around
the stopwatch. The slight comfort was that if it felt that disorientating to run it, how bad was it for the jovial, supportive counters who enthusiastically shouted numbers at you as you passed them every lap? I can’t imagine what rare breed signs-up to a 24 hour track race...
But then I heard it, the bell ringing out to tell us to change directions after 30 mins, the euphoria that the end was in sight followed closely
by the crushing reality that we had to do it all over again. What I found so funny was the awareness of my speed doubling in the final few minutes, not in an attempt to cover more ground but in the deluded
“I can’t imagine what rare breed signs-up to a 24 hour track race...”
state that it would be over quicker if my legs moved faster.
My only attempt at this was in 2012, an Olympic year. And, I
didn’t think about it much until I discovered, by chance, last year that
my 14,245m covered in that hour was a women’s club record, I don’t think it’s worth mentioning that I may be the only woman to have actually run it, a record is a record and all that...
COLUMn
27


RaCE REPORT
Juniors make
the running southern cross country championships
Gold, silver and bronze team medals, and gold and bronze individual performances, reported by KeitH neWton
Herne Hill Harriers dominant young women bring home the medals
28


Parliament Hill, dubbed the ‘home of cross AC’s team, their squad tragically lost two athletes.
Special friendships have developed between our athletes across the two clubs, who combine great sportsmanship with a fiercely competitive spirit. We remember them when our girls compete,
and this was personified when the girls stood in unity following their fantastic racing, alternating red, white and green and red and black vests. Second scorer to Alex was Ella Newton, 15th, her best run in these Championships, followed by Eimear Griffin, 18th and Olivia Stillman, 24th. All but Ella are bottom of their age group which, bodes well for next winter’s U17W team. Zoe Tompkins provided excellent back up in 42nd. The team scored 60 points to AFD’s 77. An amazing victory, and our first in this age group.
The U13 Boys’ team were deprived of
the overall race favourite, Jaden Kennedy. Nevertheless, there was strength in depth. Christo Chilton produced an outstanding run to lead the team home in 7th, backed up by Jacob Harrison, 10th, Benjamin Harrison, 17th and Cameron Walsh 22nd. Their cumulative score of 56 points secured them the silver team medals. Our U13 Girls’ team came third.
Finishing orders within the team have fluctuated through the season, and this time it was the turn of Poppy Craig-McFeely to lead the team home, 15th place with Maisie Collis just behind Poppy, 20th, followed by Layla Wilkinson, 41st and Eva Holland, 67th.
These results demonstrate that with commitment, grit and determination, our athletes will succeed. They make us proud to be HHH members.
country running’ hosted the Southern
championships on 28th January 2017. There are few greater sights with its view of London as a backdrop, and the foreground peppered by runners charging up from the start close to Parliament Hill Lido, as each of the ten races get underway.
Dry weather resulted in benign underfoot conditions and the skies brightened as the morning progressed. From Herne Hill Harrier’s perspective, the individual run of the day belonged to Charlotte Alexander, the Wayne Vinton coached athlete, winner of the U15 Girls’ race. In her first year of club running, Charlotte destroyed a top quality field by hitting the first two hills hard.
The talented Saffron Moore, who was fourth in this race last year when bottom of the age group, was the one athlete who attempted to stay in contention with Charlotte. However, it was always going to take a special athlete to
get anywhere near Charlotte, and so it proved. Charlotte opened a 25 second lead to secure victory in her Southern Cross Country debut, an exhibition of triumphant front running. Isobel Penniceard came 64th, Clarissa Nicholls, 70th, and Susannah Hirst, 99th, the team, however, secured only 8th position with other runners unable to finish.
Gold team medals were won by our U17W team, led home by the club’s most successful ever female cross country runner, Alex Brown, who finished third. After the titanic battle at Mansfield with Aldershot Farnham and District
“special friendships have developed between our athletes across the two clubs, who combine great sportsmanship with a fiercely competitive spirit.”
29


30
REVIEW
Today We die a little: The rise and Fall of emil Zatopek by richard askwith
PUBliSHEd By VintagE, £16.99 (2016)
Fairy-tale Pete
Atypographical error buried in a picture credit boldly declares that the subject
of this biography broke the world record for the ‘20,000km.’ I laughed. But, by the end of the book, I realised that if anyone had actually timed his ridiculous volume of racing and training, in aggregate it was probably true.
In Finnish the words ‘Satu Peka’ mean something like ‘Fairy-tale Pete.’ Shouted in unison by a
large crowd of knowledgeable Scandinavian athletics fans it sounds almost indistinguishable from ‘Za-to-pek’, the name of the great, post-war distance runner. That’s how Emil Zatopek, the only runner ever to win Olympic gold medals in the 5,000m, 10,000m and marathon in the same games (in Helsinki in 1952), became known as Fairy-tale Pete in the historic home of distance running. The title of Richard Askwith’s biography of Zatopek, ‘Today we die a little,’ is taken from what the runner is supposed to have said to his fellow athletes at the start of the 1956 Olympic marathon. By then Zatopek was passed his peak. Even though no primary source exists
to say those were his exact words,
short) in the muddy glory of the London 1948 Olympics.
His approach to racing too
was unlike any modern runner. He didn’t select events and
train for them, he raced indiscriminately, hating to say
no to people. His openness and deep humanity were so great
that he risked his unrivalled 1952 Olympic achievement by refusing to travel until a fellow runner who fell foul of the Czech authorities was reinstated to the national Olympic team. The same spirit led him to being a leading voice of the opposition to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Reading about the personal prices he paid, and the grace with which he bore the costs, both for his principles and for his athletic achievement, leave you as breathless and drained as the heaviest interval session you have ever run. Askwith’s telling of his story (another Zatopek biography was published simultaneously)
is a powerful reminder that sport is always about more than numbers, it’s just one more expression
of how you choose to be in
the world.
AnDreW SimmS
Askwith cites them as a perfect encapsulation of the runner’s ‘cheerful camaraderie, his dry humour; and his slightly bonkers bravado in the face of the agonies of his sport.’
Resonant details like this fill
the book. It paints a picture full
of pathos of an athlete whose achievements are, and will
probably remain, unique. Zatopek survived not just the rigours of
an endurance sport in which
he redefined the intensity of preparation, but also the buffeting of a world in political upheaval which he confronted just as he would a race, by taking a lead.
In running terms, Zatopek did
not invent interval training, he learned that from the Finns, but
he certainly made it his own and took it to another level. He was known to run sessions of not just 10 or 20 reps of 400m, but 30, 40, 50 and, reportedly, many more. There are so many stories about this extraordinary character that
the difference between fairy tale and reality are hard to discern, although his achievements were beyond international doubt from the moment he won 10,000m gold and 5000m silver (falling just a whisker


REVIEW
power games: a political History of the olympics, by Jules Boykoff
PUBliSHEd By VErSo, £11.99 (2016)
The Power and the gory
Another title for this book might have been ‘the Olympic Contradiction.’ It charts
how the event that represents the pinnacle of athletic achievement sought to exist above politics, but became a routine arena for political power, and a player in global politics. Power Games reveals how the contradictions were there from the start. The movement’s founder, French aristocrat, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, believed in the role of sport to bring people together. He saw it as a potentially ‘potent factor... in securing world peace’, but also
as ‘an indirect preparation for war.’ Coubertin was in awe of the sporting culture of Britain’s public schools like Rugby. He viewed it as instrumental in building the British Empire and thought France could similarly benefit. Apart from veiled militarism, the movement also began as hostile to both women and working class men. But even then, as Coubertin was insisting that ‘the Olympic games must be reserved for men,’
a vibrant, contemporary suffragette movement was demanding greater equality for women.
Sporting amateurism was part of the high moral tone of the games, but the definition of amateurism,
taken from something called ‘the mechanics clause’ used by the Amateur Athletic Club of England, denied amateur status to anyone who ‘is by trade or employment a mechanic, artisan, or labourer.’ For a movement professing inclusion, at a stroke that excluded most of the working classes and meant, in effect, you needed a private income to be able to compete. Obnoxious racial theories also cast a long shadow over the movement. But far from these being problems of the past, the book reveals how sexism, racism, and sometimes brutal politics are as regular parts of the games as the marathon and high jump. Poor neighbourhoods get cleared and billions spent on elite, soon-to-be-abandoned facilities amidst social deprivation. Failed environmental pledges, doping and bribery scandals, prove common. Women were not allowed to run
the marathon until 1984, 88 years after it was run by men in the first modern Olympics.
The Olympic hierarchy accommodated Nazi Germany
in 1936, even as Hitler’s internal repression and demonization
of Jewish people was common knowledge. Jesse Owens’ triumphs
at that Games were seen as a rebuke to Hitler, but when Owens returned to America he still
faced racial segregation at home. Decades later, when two African- American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, lowered their heads and raised their arms at
the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, in protest at continuing segregation and discrimination, the athletes were vilified and banned from competition. Today, the gap between Olympic promise and reality remains. ‘Legacy’ is used to justify the public expense and disruption of the games, but promises are soon broken. Public participation in UK sport actually fell in the four years after the London 2012 Olympics.
Yet, on some level, the games succeed in spite of themselves, evidence that there is something magical, and celebratory of life at
the heart of sport. An passage in the book describes a little known history of how an early series of alternative, popular and progressive ‘working peoples’ international athletics events challenged the five rings, forcing them to mend their ways and become more open. Perhaps it’s time for something similar to happen again.
AnDreW SimmS
31


sunshine and medals
Early Spring sunshine and freshly minted medals brought runners out to South London’s Brockwell Park to take part in Herne Hill Harriers’ annual Frank Harmer Memorial 10k. Forecasts of rain proved wrong, though the pain of the Park’s punishing inclines proved less easy to dodge. But that’s what Sunday’s are for, isn’t it?
Herne Hill Harriers is a community amateur sports club.
We pride ourselves on being a family club and cater for all standards. We offer coaching, training and competitions in all track and
field events, road running, cross-country, indoor athletics and sports hall and welcome athletes of all ages from 11 upwards interested in track and field, road running or cross country races.
For more information about us, our events,
how to get involved or anything else about Herne Hill Harriers, please get in touch at [email protected]
www.hernehillharriers.org