Running a marathon

How does a marathon make you feel? Not great by most accounts. Of the stars, Abebe Bikila seems to come out best. After running barefoot to victory in the 1960 Olympics he went on to the infield to go through a calisthenics routine. Jim Hogan did the same after winning the 1966 European Marathon, but it might have been to take the weight off his feet – in a picture of them after the race each toe looks like one big blister.

Richard Nerurkar’s experience seems more typical. He describes the aftermath of winning his debut marathon in 2:10:57: “Satisfaction… could not disguise an acute feeling of post-race weariness. My feet were still hot from pounding over 26 miles of tarmac. I had one or two nasty blisters. If it was true that I had played down my ambitions before the race, it was also the case I had underestimated quite how tired I would be feeling afterwards”.

Kenny Moore wrote this about his fourth place in the 1972 Olympic Marathon: “If it is run right, a marathon inflicts considerable physical damage…I ran it right, with the crowd’s approval roaring in my head, on a cushion of blood blisters…it didn’t matter if I cried. I was amazed at having the moisture”.

Ron Hill became Britain’s greatest ever marathoner. But he ran his first one on a whim, after finding no other race in his local area one Sunday in 1961: “the thought of a weekend without a race was totally alien to me”.

So he entered the Liverpool Marathon, winning in 2:24:22. Perhaps not surprisingly, he didn’t feel too good afterwards: “Even my stomach was tired and I could manage only drinks and the tinned peaches and cream of the free meal.”

The journey home doesn’t sound like much fun either. He got a lift and “they had to practically carry me out of the car and prop me against the bus stop, my legs were so stiff and hurting. Never again”

The journey home seemed to be a source of trouble for Bill Rodgers too. Before his many successes (winning the New York and Boston Marathons 4 times each), he had a series of disappointments. After a relative failure in the 1974 New York Marathon (5^th in 2:35:59), he “climbed into the car and had cramps all over [his] body”

David Costill is better known as a physiologist than as a runner but he sums up the strain of it all: “the sensations of exhaustion were unlike anything I had ever experienced. I could not run, walk or stand, and even found sitting a bit strenuous.”

So it’s physically not great, but what does it do it for the mind? Not much evidence of runners’ high from the champions. After his 4^th place in Munich, Kenny Moore shoves away and ‘is close to swinging at’ a 12 year old boy”. In the days after his breakthrough win in the 1969 European Marathon in Athens, Ron Hill reports spending three days, on holiday with his family, “in a snappy sort of mood”. On his way to victory in the 1973 Mainichi Marathon in Japan, Frank Shorter made a pit stop behind a building. A course marshal tried to take a picture and Shorter smashed the camera on the ground. Shorter talks of his surprise at “how suddenly aggressive I could become, not unlike the aggression all runners suddenly feel when their concentration and peace of mind are broken by a threatening dog”.

Apparently the organisers gave him the film. Did he get it developed?

(Quotes from the books referenced below)

Comments

[Laura, Wantage]

There is some fascinating stuff here Steve, you obviously have a keen interest. I love the line from - On the Waterfront - being a Marlon Brando fan as well. Thanks for all the interesting facts.