Why we run
Why not join us on a Tuesday and have a go?
Andy Kwok Martin Tony Why we run summaries
Good question, why do I run? The first inclination is to come out with a flippant response: “Well it’s faster than walking”, or “Because I can”. In reality, the answer’s complicated, at different times running fulfils different functions for me. On occasions it helps me relax (the fact that there’s not too much thinking involved suits me down to the ground!), on others it stimulates me (the ‘adrenalin rush’ of races, trying to keep up with Nick, Abdul, Tony or Julie on training runs without doing myself an injury, etc.), and , of course, there’s always the knowledge that it’s doing me good. I know the Couple of pints of “Pride” in the bar on club nights tend to dilute the benefit, but I always reckon I’ve earned them!
Not that, I have to admit, my thoughts on running have always been positive. My first memory of the sport is being forced into taking part in the Mid-Warwickshire Cubs’ sports at Leamington on the day of the 1963 Cup Final when I’d much rather have been at home supporting Leicester City on television (in those days I thought it was okay to support two or three teams (Southend United were my ‘thirds’ for the record!)). Chris and Gowan will realize I had a disappointing day all round, trailing home third out of four in the 400 yards, and getting home to find the ‘Filberts’ (believe it or not, the favourites at the time) had been soundly beaten by United.
Still, there’s nothing like a bit of success to inspire one’s sporting ambitions, and victory in the school 75 yards dash the following year set me off on my stop/start running career (though I notice I was unplaced in both the sack and egg and spoon races – Dad kept full particulars!). Actually remember being more excited at winning a place in our mixed relay team, sadly beaten by local rivals St. Johns in a ‘two horse’ race (Maggie Rooney where are you now!).
Secondary school saw running, and in fact athletics as a whole, as very much the ‘poor relation’ as far as sport was concerned, an annual sports day and the odd cross country run barely registering (I was more interested in a lunch-time ‘kick around’), though I do remember the latter being confined to laps of the school fields (virtually billiard table flat) one year due to a bout of foot-and-mouth disease, and I didn’t really have my interest re-kindled (after bouts of soccer and hockey in the seventies) until the arrival of the London Marathon in 1981.
Remember sitting in the works canteen the day after the race with two or three colleagues all of us enthused to “give it a go next time”. In the event, think I was the only one who took it any further (after a number of rejections finally making it to the start line in ’86), though we were all sufficiently inspired to, a few years later, form a team for the 1985 Sunday Times Fun Run (a 4k in Hyde Park which at the peak of its popularity boasted 30,000 competitors). Eventually, a year or so on, fired up by a spirit of evangelism, I then persuaded a few fellow members of Coventry City London Supporters Club to don their trainers for the event. Not an unmitigated success I have to admit, as in 1992 we actually managed to finish 471st, and last, team. Still they did need the exercise! Sadly, after the next running, due to amongst other things declining numbers, the race folded.
Running was still very much an occasional pleasure, until I was enticed along to Vale Farm by a friend to “try out the Tuesday night group” (of which Bev, Nicky and Bob Davidson were already members) in March ’87. Two weeks later I was a paid up member of Serpentine Running Club (then about a twelfth of its current size), and the rest as they say is history, the legionella scare in 1999, which caused the closure of the Sports Centre for a number of weeks, eventually proving the catalyst for the formation of Sudbury Court.
Now I can’t really visualise what life would be like without my two/three weekly running ‘fixes’.