Cyclic running

Photograph Quiz;

Photo no. [Put in your own guess in here Blog]:-

With only one family member competing in this year’s race, the Kirkham Clan decided to take a trip to the Over 70s Free Style Ice Skating Figure Championships at Coventry Canal Basin instead of watching the race from our front gate (see photos above) These pictures of the family were taken two years ago as we cheered the runners to one last effort. What year was this?? Remember to submit your answers in the usual way on the back of a cheque made out to

Tiny Tims Children’s Centre or Newlife.

Please hurry, Banks are doing away with the use of cheques according to the news last week.

Dear Blog, How’s the post London legs now??

This morning, the local running club organised its annual 10km road race. The road outside my house was closed to traffic for a couple of hour so the race could take place in safety. The event passes my front door, the finish being about 150m further along the road. The road closure was rolling, so minimum disruption was caused.

About 25 years ago, the Jaguar Fun Run used to pass my door, the course used following a similar route to the 10km.. The significance of the Jaguar race was that it was a FUN RUN, one of the new vogue of races organised for Joggers with no official permit from the athletic authority. Horror, horror the world was about to implode. As with today’s Park Runs, the athletic authorities were caught wrong footed, not knowing quite how to treat this new phenomenon.

I have been ploughing my athletic furrow for a few years. I find it interesting how cyclic events are in the world of athletics. A cursory glance at this month magazines on athletics indicate that the theory of biorhythms is about to make a reappearance; is it because the magazine writers run short of current topics of interest and with a dead line looming find they have to thrash around in back issues to find a column filler, I ask myself. Delving into old magazines ideas that were once the vogue are newly uncovered. Bruce Tulloch once said that athletes were constantly searching for a panacea which would improve their performance, if not by the next day, then at least by the next Saturday’s race. Biorhythms satisfied this desire some years ago. With its resurfacing, could do so again? One writer sows the idea and others are quick to latch on.

The jogging boom in the 80s saw the birth of the Fun Run. Athletic clubs were bemused by the new type of runner, the authorities more so. Fun Runs were met with official disapproval because the organisers operated independently of the need for permits or official permission. The status quo of a century was under intense pressure. Affiliated athletes who participated in a Fun Run were threatened with reprisals; it was a rerun of the amateur/ professional conflict of yester year. It was fruitless to intimidate the established athletes with dire consequences because the jogging craze mushroomed and prove unstoppable. Large field meant larges incomes for the organisers who were often charities / rotary clubs etc. who were quick to realise the opportunities of fund raising for their self interest. Money started to slosh around the grass roots of the sport, and athletes in clubs wanted in on the action. The need for change became irresistible. Amateurism was under pressure. Brown envelopes disappeared; trust funds were set up for individual athletes to protect their ‘amateur’ status. Amateurs could cash in openly from their sport. Professional athletes were beginning to emerge. The irony of this seems to be that today’s lottery funded assisted athletes are questionably earning less than the amateur counterparts of the 60s and 70s. The authorities were playing catch-up. The sheer number of joggers and fun runs forced the belated rethink by the athletic governing bodies.

In the past couple of weeks, several charity fun runs have had to be cancelled because of lack of interest. The 70s boom in  jogging saw charities cash in big time from milking the sport with increasing entry fees and commercial sponsorship from  events which were often not very well organised. The ‘sponsorship form’ was invented. It was cool to be sponsored for not running very fast. Club events struggled to keep pace. Some established races went to the wall. Clubs felt the draught of the fun runners passing them by. Last week,’ Race for Life’ cancelled events as far apart as the West Midlands and Yorkshire through public indifference. The Park Run with it’s regular weekly runs over short courses with no entry fee has been suggested as one cause. Some club races might be suffering from the same reason. The jogger and fun runner may have been seduced by the Park Runs from charity events, there being no pressure on the participants to raise funds for a chosen cause. What goes round comes around. Thirty years ago it was the charities who seduced runners away from club events.

Therefore it is all power to the local running club who organised this morning’s race which went past my house. Despite the regular Saturday Park Run the day before, the club’s field was large, the roads were closed, the race well marshalled and each finisher was rewarded with a novel finishing prize which served the double purpose of being useful and providing advertising for the promoting club. The circle seems complete tonight.

                                                                               Bye Blog, Colin