Photograph Quiz:
Photo no. 18:- Why was this godiva athlete so important to the Foleshill area of Coventry?
So what did you do in the London Marathon Blog??? You have been a bit coy about it.
Looking at myself in the mirror this morning, Blog, I reflected on how much I have to do to tidy up post London street trudge. Listening to the radio at the same time as I tried to avoid damaging Zapata, I realised how many items and events of so called news are recycled and how easy it seems to be to create a myth especially for vested interests. The two fused together to remind me of a runner I shared a house with briefly many years ago. A former winner of the New York Marathon when it was run on circuits around Central Park, he was a gift to the media because he had an opinion on everything .... and was a pain in the a**e because he never shut up! His five minutes of fame resulted in him being available for ‘rent a quote’. One of his pearls of wisdom entered the world of the urban myth which I saw struggling to resurface a month ago in one of the athletic monthly magazines. The magazines are a prime example of recycling. How many different ways can you say the same thing before the poor punter realises and spends the four quids on something else?? They are in the industry of recycling. Back to my marathon winner. In an interview in ‘Runners World’ he claimed that for days after a hard marathon, he had no need to shave as his body was so protein deficient from his exertions that none was available for the growth of bodily hair! This was picked up on this side of the Atlantic and given space in the red top press albeit in passing. But then it took on a life of its own. The original quote was lost but the myth grew. ‘Marathon runners do not need to have haircuts as often as non athletes’! ‘You never see a bearded marathon runner’ (followed by the explanation that they lacked protein their diet; this very nicely linked in with the protein bleed out diet popular at the time, which one of our coaches linked together in great technical detail. I still can’t understand his technical articles today!) And conversely, ‘there are more bald headed marathon runners than in any other athletic event [i agree with this, I see few bald headed women javelin competitors].These and similar quotes were fuelled by the plethora of running magazines springing up and their unquenchable thirst for news .I must now confess Blog, that there may be something in the theory after all. I do suspect that all this trudging I have been doing of late might have something to do with the rapid thinning of the front follicles. How many ways can you comb your hair to cover up a rapidly increasing area of skin?? Answer of the back of a £5 to be donated to either Newlife or Tiny Tims Children’s Centre.
Mind you Blog, this urban myth business does have a wider audience in the popular press at the time of public interest in major games. Nowadays, the expression of ‘hitting the wall’ is fairly widely understood, even by the general public. Running short of fuel is a concept most can accept. It was not always so, even by journalists who should have known better and certainly should have done their home work. In years past, the red tops sent any sports writer to the major games, mostly football journalists who were kicking their heels waiting for the new football season to start. Moscow 1980. G.B. marathon runners Thompson, Black and Ford all recorded d.n.f..The Mirror had their doyen of football writing in Moscow doing his best to record the feats of our athletes but clearly out of his depth. Whether the idea of hitting the wall was explained to him after a few vodkas, or his article was sub edited back in London is not known. What is in print (I have the cutting on file), is that the Mirror announced to the sporting Great British public that ‘all our three marathon runners had fallen over a wall at 20 miles’ ... I kid you not.
More later if I get back from my trudge while its light.
Colin
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