My move to the marathon could hardly have gone better. Out of three races I had two wins and an Olympic third. People were saying I should have tried it earlier, because it was obviously my event. I would like to have started earlier and had a longer career over 26 miles, but I moved to the marathon when I was ready to be good at it. For various reasons it took me until I was 31 to develop fully at 10k, and it was the physical and mental qualities I had developed on the track that made me successful when I transferred them to the marathon. I wouldn’t have been the same marathon runner without first becoming the best I could be at the shorter distances.
I achieved my targets because I knew what I wanted; I knew why I wanted it; and I knew how much I wanted it. I also stuck to it when things went wrong, and I wasn’t distracted by other things that came along. My attitude probably cost me a lot of money along the way. Actually, there is no probably in it, but I wouldn’t want to change anything. I never altered my plans to make money, but now that I had an Olympic medal, I had the prospect of making some, and I wasn’t going to turn it down. Medallists could expect to be paid by their shoe company for product endorsement, but I already worked for Nike and they didn’t want to employ me and sponsor me. We reached a compromise. They continued to pay my salary, while I took a sabbatical year so that I could pursue my running, but with a job to come back to. I went back to Boston, where things had gone so well for me previously.
My old friend, Anne Parker, had moved to a larger house in Auburndale, and there was a spare room to rent, which I happily took. After a few weeks of reasonable training I ran a 10k road race, and came 16th in 30:28. A week later I ran the Freedom Trail road race, put my foot in a pothole after three miles and had to walk back to the finish. After the dizzy heights of Los Angeles, I had fallen back to earth with a severe bump. I didn’t really grasp it then, but a curious change was taking place. In the years between LA and the end of my career, I hardly ever ran a decent race, unless it was in a major event.
By successfully peaking for the AAA’s 10k and my marathons, I had developed and honed my ability to focus on one event, commit myself to it and then give it everything I had. The more often I pulled this off, the more confident I became that I could do it again. This approach worked for me and it transformed my running career. However, like many things, it had unforeseen consequences. The better I became at digging deep in a major race, the less able I was to run hard in any other event. I tried to do my best, but I became less and less able to produce a performance if a race didn’t matter to me.
I had another friend in Boston called John McGrath, who was editor of the magazine, Boston Running News. He helped me in a number of ways, and in October ’84 he negotiated a $4,000 appearance fee for me to run a 15k road race in Tulsa. I went down to Oklahoma and was treated like a celebrity, until after the race. I finished 16th in 46:33, almost three minutes slower than my best. It was embarrassing. I tried, I never gave up, but I just couldn’t perform. The gravy train of appearance fees that an Olympic medallist could expect on the road race circuit, quickly dried up after that, because no one was going to pay good money for such a bad performance.
The week before this I had been to the Windy City to watch the Chicago Marathon. Carlos Lopes and Rob de Castella had both been trounced by Steve Jones, who set a new world best of 2:08:06, in his first attempt at the distance. These were extraordinary times. I had won Houston, won London, and won a bronze at the Olympics, but in the ranking lists produced at the end of the year, I was rated second best marathon runner in Britain.
I continued to train through the winter as usual and expected things to improve. In January I ran the New England indoor 5,000m again. I had achieved a great deal in the four years since my 13:42 epic encounter with Greg Meyer, but it was hard to explain how, as I came last in 14:18. I went down to Florida expecting to turn things round in the Gasparilla 15k, but embarrassed myself again with 33rd in 46:20.
As defending champion, I had arranged to run the London Marathon, and this time I was to be flown over from Boston, given a hotel room for a week and paid a decent appearance fee. This was all good news but I was most concerned about who else was running. I was assured that Steve Jones was not going to compete, and I began my intense period of preparation, thinking about winning. As the race got closer my performances improved, and I started to believe I could run really well again.
Three weeks before the race, I discovered that Steve Jones was running. I didn’t care who I ran against, I just wanted to know so I could get my head around it. I always felt that somebody knew he was going to run a long time before I did, but no matter, it was up to me to run the best I could. There were no pacemakers in those days, and Steve and I were in the leading group throughout, as we reached halfway in a decent 64:35. Around the Isle of Dogs the leading group was down to five and the two of us were doing all the leading. I knew we were running a good pace, but I felt alright. Between 19 and 20 miles Jones surged hard and I immediately went with him. Within a few yards the two of us were clear of the rest.
We ran the 21st mile in 4:43, with Jones pushing the pace and me on his shoulder. I felt incredibly alert and alive, but could hardly believe we were going so fast with so far still to run. The marathon course is different now, but back then we ran along the partly paved and partly cobbled streets of Wapping before reaching the Tower of London. We ran 4:48 for each of those two miles. We went past the cheering crowd in front of the Tower hotel, and we hurtled under Tower Bridge side by side. To my amazement, Steve turned to me and asked, ‘How do I go to the toilet while I’m running?’ (Those weren’t the exact words he used, but that was definitely what he meant.) I said, ‘You’ll have to stop, Steve.’
A hundred yards later, he suddenly disappeared from my peripheral vision. I didn’t look round, but I assumed he had taken my advice. I tried to make the most of my advantage, but it was very difficult to accelerate when I was already going so fast. Quarter of a mile later, I glanced behind, and to my horror he was only ten yards back. Moments later he had caught me, and it was clear that whatever he had done with his problem, he was feeling better. As we went through the Blackhall Tunnel he picked up the pace again and I couldn’t respond. I maintained a pace of 4:50 per mile all the way to the finish, but he was pulling away from me at about five seconds per mile.
I ran 63:58 for the second half marathon, and about 29:50 for the last 10k, but it just wasn’t good enough. My time of 2:08:33 was an English record, which still stands as I write this 24 years later. It would have been a world best if I had run it three years earlier, but standards had leapt forward and it put me eighth on the world all time list. This was another occasion when I was left with mixed emotions. I was delighted to have run so well, but found it hard to understand how I could have run so fast, but still been beaten. I was one of the best marathon runners in the world, but not as good as a Welshman.
There were no major championships in 1985, but both the Commonwealth Games and European championships were due within three weeks of each other in 1986. It was going to be impossible for a marathon runner to do both, and a choice would have to be made. It was still a long way off and I hadn’t given it any thought. However, a couple of days after the London race, I was informed that I had been selected to run for England in the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. Steve Jones had been picked to run for Britain in the European, and it appeared that Andy Norman, who was still in charge of just about everything, had organised it all. This obviously seemed like a good idea to everybody, because it was assumed that Steve and I could win a championship each. However, it didn’t turn out like that. Steve built up a big lead in his race, but then faded badly to plod home in over 2 hours 20 minutes. I was struggling by half way, and I dropped out at 19 miles.
I am not going to try to explain what happened to Jones, because I don’t know for sure, but I can tell you what happened to me. I suffered too much from pre-race nerves. I was nervous for months beforehand, and it drained me. I went to the start line with dread instead of anticipation, and I was beaten before the race began. In the past I had always produced my best results in big races with plenty at stake. I had always been nervous, but I had been able to channel that energy into my performance. So what was different this time? The answer is very simple – it wasn’t my goal.
I have mentioned this a few times but I am going to repeat it because it is so important. What do I want? Why do I want it? How much do I want it? Being able to answer these questions to my own satisfaction had always produced my best results. Running the Commonwealth Games 15 months down the line was never my decision. I didn’t want it; somebody else wanted it for me. If somebody asked if I would like to be Commonwealth Champion I would say yes, but that’s just a conversation; it isn’t commitment. The desire to achieve something has to be born inside you, grow inside you and blossom and flourish inside you, until you know what you want, and why you want it, and how much it means. A goal formed this way is an incredibly powerful motivator, but a goal somebody else chooses for you, becomes a burden and then a shackle.
The feeling of nervousness you get before a big race comes from the hormone adrenalin, which is produced in times of fear and stress. Adrenalin raises blood-sugar levels by stimulating glucose production. It increases heart rate and blood flow to the muscles, and it widens the small breathing tubes in the lungs. These are all actions which help you to run faster. Other hormones released by the adrenal gland, like cortisol, are essential for the daily maintenance of systems including blood glucose, blood pressure and the immune response. Like adrenalin, cortisol production is increased by stress, and these ‘fight or flight’ hormones were essential to us through evolution, as we responded quickly to danger. In days gone by, when you ran away from danger, you could relax as soon as you were safe, and your hormone levels would return to normal. If you are exposed to high levels of cortisol for an extended period of time, it starts to cause lots of problems. It can cause muscle weakness and mental confusion. It decreases fluid retention, and upsets the control of blood sugar levels, and because of our stressful lifestyles, it is believed to be one factor in the diabetes epidemic. These bad effects of cortisol are not what you want when you are trying to run a marathon. I am sure I had far too much cortisol in my system leading up to Edinburgh. I went to the start line in a state of dread, rather than anticipation. I was dehydrated, and I had been unable to add any weight when I did my carbohydrate loading. I was never running well, and when I stopped, I made no clear decision to do so. I just stopped, and wondered what I was doing.
I saw a lot of similarities to this when Paula Radcliffe ran in Athens. She was never going very well, she looked a bit confused when she failed to take the shortest route a couple of times, and when she stopped, it just happened. I was frustrated and annoyed by people who suggested she quit as soon as she couldn’t get a medal. I am sure it was cortisol that made her stop, and at the time she didn’t know why. Trying to win the Olympics would obviously have been her goal, but she had the enormous stress of knowing that the entire world expected her to win. Coupled with the injury set backs she had before the race, I suspect she was too stressed to perform, as I was in Edinburgh.
Life goes on and a week later I was getting married. I took my running shoes on honeymoon, because I was running the Chicago Marathon eleven weeks later. My training went well, and I went to Chicago six days before the race, hoping to put the dreadful disappointment of Edinburgh behind me. On my first day there I suffered from diarrhoea, and didn’t feel well. I felt rough for the next two days, and two days before the race I felt so bad I spent most of the day in bed. I told the organisers about how I was feeling, but that I would wait until race day before making a decision. The race started at 8:45 in the morning, so I didn’t have much time to mull it over. I was feeling a little better, so I decided to warm up, and after a mile of jogging I felt alright. I went to the start line telling myself I would be fine, but not feeling convinced.
The opposition included Seko and Salah, and the two of them were in a leading group that was running too fast for my dented confidence. I let them go very early on and ran in the second group. I was feeling alright, and after passing halfway in 64:50, I started to lead my group to maintain the pace. By 16 miles I had only Mike Musyoki for company, and we were catching stragglers from the leading group. With three miles to go I surged away from Musyoki and was quickly catching Salah, but couldn’t get to him before the line. Seko won, and I was third in 2:10:13.
There was clearly nothing wrong with me physically. I am sure that all the problems I had suffered before the race were psychosomatic. The stress and disappointment of the Commonwealth Games had been so great that my subconscious mind didn’t want me to have anything more to do with marathons. After producing a performance in Chicago that made me feel happy and positive, I laid that ghost to rest and I never suffered those problems again.
Throughout the year, I had been having some problems with my left Achilles tendon, and after Chicago it got worse. I had lots of treatment to no avail, and after only managing to average 40 miles a week for three months, I had a cortisone injection from a specialist in Middlesbrough. After this, I was able to train for the 1987 London Marathon, which was the trial for the World Championships. Although it didn’t hurt much, there was a small area of skin which was attached to the tendon. I had some very painful friction massage, but the adhesion would not break down.
I went back to the specialist, and asked if he could surgically remove this adhesion. We arranged that I would run London, and then go in for a quick operation the following weekend. I was hoping to recover quickly from a minor procedure and then train for the World Championships without any niggling pains.
My training wasn’t brilliant, but I certainly thought it was good enough to run well. I just needed to produce a big performance. A friend and training partner volunteered to come to the start with me and look after all my kit. I should have said no. The last few minutes before a race begins are the most important, and I had run my greatest races when I had cut myself off from everybody and focused my mind. He was a decent runner but a poor competitor, and although he meant well, he said all the wrong things to me. He filled my mind with all the negativity you could imagine, by saying things like, ‘Don’t worry; it doesn’t hurt until after halfway.’ If there is to be any thought at all of the physical pain to come, it should be mentally transferred to your opponents. I should have been saying to myself, ‘I am going to give these people hell. I’m going to make them suffer.’
I ran in the leading group for the first six miles, but shortly after the Cutty Sark, Hugh Jones pushed the pace quite hard. With my negative frame of mind, I thought it was too early to be speeding up, and I let him go. I also let nine other runners go with him. I stayed in the second group thinking I would catch the leaders when they slowed. Unfortunately, the lead group didn’t slow but my group did, and the gap was getting bigger. Within a mile or two I realised I had made a big mistake, and I picked up my pace. Soon I was running entirely by myself, 150 yards adrift of the leading group, who were bunched together and helping each other. I tried to close the gap, but it was a bit windy and I couldn’t get any closer. I became really angry with myself. If only I was on the back of that group. I would be running at the same pace, but it would be so much easier. I would be thinking about winning instead of thinking what a fool I was.
I never managed to catch the leaders. I finished 8th, but only 40 seconds behind the winner. I ran 2:10:32 having run the last 19 miles by myself in a bad mood. Of all the many disappointments I had in my career, this is the only race that still bothers me. I don’t know if I could have won the race from the leading group, but I would have tried and I might have done. With one silly mistake induced by a negative attitude, I threw away the chance to be the first man to win London twice.
However, my run was good enough to be picked for the British team for the World Championships in Rome three months later, and if I could quickly clear up my niggling Achilles tendon, perhaps I could produce something much better there. I went in to the Nuffield hospital in Norton as a day patient, because I was only having a local anaesthetic. The anaesthetist tried to produce a nerve block of my whole leg with an injection in my groin, but he must have missed the nerve as nothing happened. The alternative was to inject around the tendon. I tried to lie very still, as I had done ten years earlier.
A few hours after the operation I was allowed to go home, but two days later I had a high temperature and my leg was swelling, because the wound was infected. My GP gave me antibiotics and when I saw the surgeon two days later, he removed the stitches and the blood from a haematoma rushed out. He steri-stripped the sides back together and sent me home. The wound kept oozing blood, and when I went back to see him, he put my ankle in a plaster cast for a week to see if immobilisation would help it to heal. When he took the plaster off, and I saw my leg, I really thought I would never run again.
The skin that had been underneath the stitches had all died and disappeared. There was a hole in my leg about half an inch wide and two inches long, through which you could see the Achilles tendon. He scurried out of the room and came back a few minutes later with a plastic surgeon, who said the only option was to leave it to heal.
The process of healing involves the granulation of new skin from the edges of the wound towards the centre. As time went by, the hole became smaller, but as new skin formed it attached itself to the tendon below. It took about 15 weeks for the wound to heal, and I still have a large wide scar, which is completely attached to the tendon below it. I had gone into hospital to have a small adhesion removed, and now an inch and a half of tendon was completely attached to the skin. Amazingly, it didn’t hurt when I ran. Almost four months after London, I was able to jog for ten minutes. I was incredibly unfit, and it took me another two months to work my way back to 65 miles a week.
I was very unhappy about what had happened in that operating theatre. I took legal advice about it, and went to see an independent medical adviser. There were several problems. The presence of anaesthetic at the wound site can interfere with healing. The surgeon had cut out the old scar from my previous operation, which was not what we had agreed, and is not recommended practice. The stitches should have been removed as soon as my leg began to swell, and I shouldn’t have become infected in the first place. Having said all that, the expert felt I had been unlucky, and none of it could be regarded as negligent. So, I would just have to get on with it.
After such a long period of enforced rest, I had to increase my training very gradually, because I was getting lots of problems from tight hamstrings to sore knees and stiff calves. I was also having pain in my right Achilles tendon, which was probably caused by the extra stress I had put on that leg while I was on crutches. I was struggling and even simple runs were very tiring.
We were living in an old farm house a few miles north of Newcastle. On a sunny day the quiet country lanes were ideal for running, but at night, in winter, it was a different story. There were no street lights and the only illumination was from the lights of Newcastle reflected from the clouds. I couldn’t actually see the road, but I could see where it was because it was a slightly darker shade of grey than the verge, and the hedgerow. I often ran there in total darkness, finding my way mainly from memory. One night after work in December ’87, I ran 5 miles along these lanes. I felt bad from the start, and got worse as I ran on. The last mile and a half was all slightly uphill, with a short sharp hill near the house.
I was struggling up the gradient feeling exhausted. I was getting slower and slower. When I reached the bottom of the sharp hill, I stopped. I couldn’t face it. I felt so tired I sat down. For about five minutes, I sat in the middle of the cold road, in complete darkness, wondering what I was doing. I had been through so many disappointments in the previous two years, and now I couldn’t even run up a little bank. I’d had a great career; perhaps I should pack it all in. The negative voices in my head were becoming persuasive. ‘You’ve been an international athlete, but look at you now. You’re 35. Wouldn’t you prefer to sit in front of a warm fire on a winter night, instead of sitting in a cold road? You’ve got nothing more to prove; you’ve got an Olympic medal.’
It was my negative voices that reminded me that it was almost 1988, and only ten months until the Seoul Olympics. A new voice in my head asked if I wanted to go to the Games again. This would be my last chance; if I didn’t go this time there would be no next time. Did I want to go? ‘Yes, I did.’ Why did I want to go? ‘Because it’s the greatest competition in the world, and Los Angeles had been the best experience of my life. If I didn’t even try to go to the Games I might regret it for the rest of my life.’ How much did I want to go? ‘I had been through the trauma of dropping out in Edinburgh, and then through the sheer hell of a hole in my leg. I wasn’t going to let those things determine the end of my career. The Olympics had defined my career, and I wanted to test myself at the Olympics again.’
I stood up. I knew I was unfit now, but surely I could get fit in ten months. I knew it would be a long, slow process so I started with a compromise. I walked up the hill, and then ran the rest of the way home.
I built up to a decent level of training in the New Year, but it was devoid of any quality. The London Marathon, and Olympic trial, was approaching, and I was short of time. I spoke to Alan Storey, the National marathon coach, and followed his advice by writing to the selectors. I explained that I was over my bad injury, but short of fitness. I would run in the trial to show that I was alright, but I would not be at my best. If they could show the faith to pick me, I was positive I could be at my best by the time of the Games.
I didn’t know what sort of performance I needed to produce to sway the selectors, and I went to the start line of the London Marathon with far more hope than expectation. I settled into a large leading group and we passed through halfway in 64:35. I covered the first break after 19 miles, but I couldn’t hang on to the second surge at 21. My legs stiffened, and I felt dreadful as I plodded to the finish. I came 10th in a personal worst of 2:12:28. There were five Britons in front of me; Kevin Forster, Hugh Jones, Dave Long, Allister Hutton and John Wheway. I had produced a good performance, considering my preparation, but I didn’t expect to be picked in front of so many others. If I hadn’t written that letter I don’t think I would have been considered, but it did the trick and I was named in the team with Kevin and Hugh.
A month after London my first child, Joe, was born. My diary records no more than four sleepless nights, so I can’t blame him for the poor training I was doing. I was cutting a lot of my sessions short because of niggles, or simply because I was struggling to do them. Physiotherapy wasn’t making me any better, so I went down to London for some biomechanical testing. It appeared that I was too inflexible in my hips and especially my calf muscles, and it was this muscular tightness that was causing my problems. I did regular stretching exercises but they weren’t enough, and I had to do more.
Ten weeks before the Games I ran the Great North Run Half Marathon. I finished 11th in 64:31. The race was won by John Treacy in 61:00. He had beaten me by two seconds in the Olympic marathon four years earlier, but now, as we both prepared for Seoul, he was beating me by three and a half minutes over half the distance. This was a bad situation and I knew I had to come up with a positive angle on it. So I applied considerable mental dexterity to the normal rules of logic, and decided this result clearly showed I would beat Treacy in Seoul. I figured that for him to run so well, he must have peaked already, whereas I was going to peak in ten weeks time. I told myself that by the Games he could only get worse, and I could only get better. If he had beaten me by only a minute I would have been worried about him!
Seoul, just like every Olympic marathon, was going to be ridiculously hot, and we would all have to acclimatise. The British Team were having a pre-Games training camp in the comparable heat of Japan, but I had heard that it was a very poor venue for long distance running. I preferred the idea of going back to Boston, where I knew I could train properly. My club mate and team mate, Kevin Forster, wanted to come too. I asked my old friend, John McGrath, if he knew anybody who needed some house-sitters during the summer. He went further than that. He put an advert in his magazine offering one lucky reader the chance to host two Olympic runners.
I got a phone call one afternoon in my office at Nike, from Steve Kahian of Lakeville, Massachusetts, who had seen the advert. He had a three bedroom house, which we could have, while he moved into the guest apartment above his garage. There was plenty of space so we could bring our families, and he had two spare cars so we could drive one each. Kevin and I were there for four weeks with our wives and children, and Steve let us live as if the house belonged to us. Wherever I have been in the world, I have always found that if you are genuinely and honestly trying to do your best at something, people seem to appear out of nowhere to help you. Steve was very generous to us and I think he enjoyed telling his friends that two marathon runners were using his house for Olympic preparation.
I managed some decent training in the heat and humidity of August in New England, including 5 × one mile in 4:38 with a lap recovery in 90 seconds; 5 × 1000m in 2:48 with 30 seconds recovery; a 28 mile run and a 20 mile interval run with surges of 1, 2 or 4 minutes duration every 5 minutes. It was nearly ten months since I had committed myself to Seoul whilst sitting in the road in the December darkness, and some of my sessions were making me believe I might not embarrass myself when I got there. My race results, however, were embarrassing. Kevin and I raced twice on this trip and he trounced me at the Falmouth road race, where I finished 30th in 34:24, which was 77 seconds slower than my time 7 years earlier. He then beat me out of sight, in our last race before the Games, at the New Haven 20k where I ran 63 minutes, which is equivalent to a half marathon in about 66:30. It was a very humid day, but two months prior to this I had reconciled my disappointment at running 64:30 in the Great North Run with an assurance that, as the Games got closer, I was going to get better and better. Clearly something wasn’t working.
The training and heat acclimatisation had gone well enough, and Steve’s place was a lot more comfortable than a training camp in Japan, but we now faced a lot of travelling. We flew back across the Atlantic and up to Newcastle, and four days later Kevin and I were flying back to London and on to Seoul via Anchorage and Tokyo. We arrived at the Olympic village, very jet-lagged and tired, eleven days before the marathon. We had to give ourselves that much time to make sure we were fully adjusted to the time change, but it is a long time to spend in an Olympic village waiting for your race. As usual, the marathon was the last event, and as the days went by the atmosphere around the village changed as more people finished their competitions.
A lot of athletes spent their time in the city, especially at some of the markets, where expensive designer goods were available at huge discounts. Apparently, I missed out on some fantastic bargains, because I never ventured out of the village except for training runs. I spent most of that week and a half lying on my bed doing crossword puzzles. I found that a crossword required enough concentration to be distracting, but allowed me to flip in and out of it much more easily than the concentration needed to read a novel. I finished an entire book of puzzles while other people were shopping, because I reckoned that walking the hot streets in search of a cheap watch was going to use up some of my energy. I knew that come race day, I was going to need every single scrap of physical and mental energy that I could muster. I wanted to save all of it.
The race was scheduled for 2:30 in the afternoon because that’s when American television wanted it; despite the fact that it was hot and the sun was so bright. If you wanted to stage a mass participation marathon in the conditions that nearly always face Olympic marathon runners, you wouldn’t get permission to do it, because it would be regarded as unsafe. However, I gave no thought to the weather as I rode on the bus to the stadium. I was too busy battling my thoughts. I had gone to Los Angeles believing I would run the race of my life, and feeling very nervous because I didn’t know what that would bring me and what my limit was. I had been full of excited anticipation. But now, as I travelled to the start in Seoul, I was very nervous again but what I felt was closer to dread. I hadn’t run a good race for two years; I knew my training was barely adequate, and I felt a lot of pressure to perform because the selectors had picked me instead of the people who had beaten me in the trial. If there was a limit for me to consider, it was to do with how badly I might run, not how well.
Four years earlier I had controlled my pre-race mental turmoil by telling myself that what I faced was not a problem but a fantastic opportunity. I had been a 33/1 outsider, who was in great shape, with everything to gain and nothing to lose. This time I couldn’t use the same approach because I was a previous medallist who wasn’t in great shape. What I faced was the opportunity to embarrass myself and have everybody say that I shouldn’t have been picked ahead of others, just on my past performance.
As I sat in the shade watching some of my competitors doing far more laps of the warm-up track than I thought necessary in this heat, I made myself get a grip. I rejected all thoughts of what other people may or may not think. I rejected all elaborate and complicated thoughts. I concentrated on simple, obvious things that were going to help me. I concentrated on this simple mental sequence: where are you, Charlie? ‘I am about to run the Olympic marathon.’ What have you wanted to do all your life? ‘Run in the Olympics.’ How come you think you have a problem?
I thought about all the injuries and setbacks I had been through, and realised that despite them all I was here, and I was about to compete in the greatest race in the world. I told myself that I was supposed to be here, and because it was the Olympic Games I would produce a performance worthy of the occasion. I realised this really was an opportunity. It was an opportunity to show myself what I was made of.
The early pace was faster than most people were expecting in such hot conditions. After quarter of an hour of running I had a brief conversation. I don’t know if it was just coincidence or whether he felt the need to continue the interchange we had started four years earlier in Los Angeles, but it was Rob de Castella who spoke to me. He saw me check my watch at 5,000 metres and he asked what pace we were on. I told him we were doing about 2:09 pace, to which he replied, ‘In this heat – we are all going to die!’ As a reply I simply shrugged my shoulders, but I was thinking, ‘That’s a very negative thing for him to say. Perhaps my friend from last year’s London marathon got to him before the start. I think I can beat him today if that’s how he is thinking.’ I then smiled to myself when I realised I clearly had my racing head on. We were only three miles into the race, and I was telling myself I had de Castella beaten!
Despite the heat and the decent early pace, there was a very large group at the front. I was content to be one of the 33 runners in the leading pack after 15 kilometres, but the size of the group was causing huge problems at the drink stations. It was very hard to see and then grab my drink with so many people in the way, and I missed two out of the first three. The problem was made much worse than it should have been by the organisers. They insisted that everyone could have their own drink at each station, but there would be no other drinks available.
In Los Angeles, the race had been organised by people who understood the marathon, and who knew how bad the heat was for running. They had provided tables for individual drinks, but if you missed your own drink, there were tables with water a hundred yards later. They also organised showers across the road, with a fine mist of water you could run through. There was none of that in Seoul. This marathon had been organised by people with a rule book, and they were going to stick exactly to the rules. They completely failed to appreciate that when the rule book on marathon drink stations had been written, nobody had contemplated holding a major championship race in these conditions. I got the British team manager to ask for a water table beyond the individual drinks, and I know that other countries asked for it too, but the Koreans were determined to stick exactly to the rules as laid down in their book, and our request was denied.
We ran on under the hot sun. The group was down to 24 as we passed 20 kilometres in 61:21. We went through the half marathon in about 64:50, and as we crossed the Han-Gang River, I found myself at the front. I led for a few hundred yards and enjoyed the feeling of leading. It made me really confident that I was performing well, but I didn’t want to stay there so I dropped in behind Juma Ikangaa, who still loved to take the pace.
By 25 kilometres the group was down to 13, and I was still there. Doing well in the Olympic marathon is really simple. Get yourself in the leading group and just stay there while everybody else drops off. Like most things in life, it’s simple, but not easy! I was still there but I wasn’t finding it easy.
With about 20 miles behind us I knew the real action would be happening soon. I was very hot and tired, but I was making myself very focused. We approached a drinks station and I moved forward to get a clear sight of my bottle. I had to get a drink. I concentrated intently. I saw it, grabbed it and lifted it off the table without a break in stride. I raised it to my mouth and drank. I spluttered and gagged. It must have been standing in direct sunshine all day because it was hot. It was the temperature of a freshly made coffee. I suppose hot water is still water but it was the shock of putting something so warm in my mouth that affected me. The surprise gave me an adrenalin spurt, which knocked my equilibrium. Then the adrenalin wore off and I had the downshift that follows. Half a mile later I was struggling. I felt flat and empty. Gelindo Bordin, Juma Ikangaa, Ahmed Salah, Douglas Wakihuri and Takeyuki Nakayama were all moving away from me. I was isolated in 6th and the leading group was getting further away with every stride.
‘No! No! No!’ I had to talk myself through this. I had to badger myself through this. ‘You can’t get dropped now. Six miles is too far to run alone. They’ll catch you from behind. You have to get a grip. Come on. Concentrate. Focus. It’s just a bad spell. You can get through it. Posture! You’re slumping. Straighten up. Shoulders back, chin down, look up. Come on. You’re not going to fade away. Come on. Hold that gap. You must not fade. This is the Olympics.’ Those last four words helped to change me from panic to commitment. ‘This is the Olympics. I have to close that gap. I have to catch them. Come on. I have to catch them. I have to do an effort. A four minute effort from my interval run. Start now. Go. Pick it up. Come on. That’s it. Quicken. Yes. Focus. Stay smooth. I’m holding them. I can do this. I have to do this. I will do this. Come on. It’s closing. Fifty yards. Focus on them. Long strides. Loose hands. More effort. That’s it. Hold this. Come on. Come on. It’s working. Forty yards. I wish they would slow down. How fast are they going if I can’t catch them running this hard? Concentrate. Focus. I am catching them. Hold this effort. Hold it. Hold it. Come on. That’s the Olympic marathon leading group thirty yards away, and I am catching them. Hold this speed. No faster. It takes time to close a gap. It takes as long as it takes. Come on. Come on. Come on. I’m catching them. It’s working. Twenty yards. Don’t surge to close it. Hold this effort. Hold it. Hold it. Concentrate. Focus. Concentrate. Focus. It’s working. Ten yards. Come on. I am going to do it. Come on. Five yards. Stay smooth. Long strides. Nearly there. Come on. Come on. Come on. Done it. Yes. Leading group of six, and I’m in it. Relax. Relax. Relax.’
As I reached the back of the group, two of them looked round in surprise. As they wondered where I had come from, I prayed to a god I don’t believe in. I prayed that nobody was going to pick up the pace for at least a couple of miles, because I was going to need a long spell of even paced running to recover from that effort. In my 20 mile interval training session, I ran for five minutes at six minutes per mile between my efforts. But that’s training, and here in the race I was trying to recover at five minutes per mile.
We ran together for less than a mile before another surge came, and everybody went with it, except me. I wanted to go with it, and I tried to go with it, but nothing happened. I put in more effort, but I didn’t move any faster. They were moving away from me again, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I was empty. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to produce any more efforts because to keep going for the last four miles was going to take a long, hard continuous effort. I had to concentrate and focus. I had to hold myself together.
The leaders were moving away with every stride, but after a few minutes Ikangaa was dropped from the group. He was a long way ahead, but I fixed my mind and my gaze onto him. I had raced him twice before and beaten him each time. I was incredibly tired and my legs felt dead, but he gave me something to aim at. Trying to catch him stopped me thinking about how far it still was to the finish. The gap between us slowly closed, and eventually I got past him. I was hurting, but I was fifth. I had always thought that if I couldn’t get a medal I would try to be fourth. If I couldn’t be fourth I would try to be fifth. Fifth wasn’t bad.
As I ran on I knew Ikangaa was beaten, but the others were out of sight in front of me. This part of the course was treelined and there were no spectators, and no officials. It was very strange. I was fifth in the Olympic marathon, running as hard as I could along an empty, silent road, all by myself. Unfortunately, my isolation didn’t last as long as I had hoped. I heard footsteps behind me. I didn’t look round – I knew what was happening. The footsteps got closer, and it was the Australian, Steve Moneghetti, who came past me. I would normally try to latch on to somebody as they went past, but I didn’t try to because I knew that any change in my cadence or rhythm was likely to tip me over the edge that I was clinging to.
If I can’t be fourth, I’ll be fifth. If I can’t be fifth, I’ll be sixth. If I can’t be sixth. … no, no, no. I will not be seventh. I must hang on to sixth. Sixth is alright. Seventh is nowhere. I have to hold on to this.
I turned a corner, which I knew was two miles from the finish. It was a straight wide road, disappearing into the distance. It also meant turning directly towards the sun. It was getting lower in the sky, but I still felt its heat against my face and arms. I was hot, tired and dehydrated. I was struggling.
Your leg muscles contract to propel you forward, and to absorb the pounding of the road, but they also have to stretch to take your legs through the extensive movement of a runner’s gait. The elasticity in your muscles decreases with age, lack of training, and excessive pounding on a hard surface. My leg muscles were getting tighter, and tighter and tighter. Four years earlier, as I ran towards the Coliseum, I was tired and hurting, but I was moving smoothly, and as I flowed along the road I felt as if I had wheels beneath my torso. But here in Seoul, as every footstep jarred through my body, I felt as if I was running on wooden stumps.
I was still trying to tell myself that sixth is ok and seventh is nowhere, but my body was screaming at me to slow down. All the little voices in my head were saying stop, sit down, lie down, you’ll feel better. I was in trouble. I was in big trouble and I still had a mile and three quarters to run. I had to think of something drastic, and something drastic came to mind. I made a deal. I made a pact with myself. If I could keep this going to the finish line I would never have to run another marathon. To get through this, I needed all the thoughts in my head to work together. A promise was made and we agreed. After all the running we had done, we could manage one more mile and a half, no matter how hard it was.
I was running on empty, and I couldn’t ignore the pain in my legs, but I shut out every other thought, and focused on running. I forgot about the stadium, and I forgot about the finish line, and I narrowed my thoughts down and down to a single point – running. The finish line would come eventually, but for now I had to run a yard, and then another one.
I held on for sixth and finished in 2 hours 12:19. Gelindo Bordin won it in 2:10:32, with Wakihuri second, and Salah took the bronze a minute and twenty seconds ahead of me. Nakayama was fourth and Moneghetti beat me by 30 seconds. Behind me, there was a bigger gap than I had imagined. Ikangaa was 47 seconds back, with de Castella a second behind him. Toshihiko Seko was ninth.
Lindsay and I have looked at my ’88 training diary several times, and there is nothing in it to suggest I was going to run the way I did. There is a conclusion to be drawn from this. If you don’t believe the mind is the most important factor in athletic performance, it’s quite simple – you are wrong. The chance to run this race wasn’t handed to me out of the blue like the Commonwealth Games; it was a goal I had made sitting on a cold, dark road when I was too tired to run up a hill. If you don’t believe it is vital to know what you want, why you want it and how much you want it, it’s quite simple – you are wrong.
After the race they took the entire first ten for a drug test. We all had to sit around in a very small room waiting to pee. Everybody was so dehydrated we were there for what seemed like hours. With the help of some beer, that I really didn’t feel like having, I managed to do what I had to do. As I left the room I was met by Simon Turnbull, who was the Athletics writer for the Newcastle Journal. His first question was, ‘I know you are 36 now, but surely you aren’t going to retire after a performance like that?’