Keep on Running

by Phil Hewitt

  In those early days of fatherhood, it was quite difficult to make the regular transition between taking myself seriously as a respectable journalist and being a dad wiping bottoms and getting regularly puked on. In some ways, the running was part of handling that transition, and it seemed to me that if I got a regular run in, then in so many ways I was able to be both a better dad and a better worker. I like to think I never lost sight of where my real responsibilities lay, but I genuinely believed that I fulfilled those responsibilities all the more effectively once I'd burned off some energy in the darkness. It seemed a reasonable pay-off. For a few hours off the leash, I was much more focused when I got back.

  Fiona wasn't necessarily ecstatic at my absences, but she recognised the equation and the benefits it brought. In fact, it was often Fiona who encouraged me to go out on those rare occasions when I wavered. As she puts it, she likes me better when I've been for a run.

  Besides, as the 2002 London Marathon dawned, she started to realise that there was just something about the men in her life. This was the year I gained the most unexpected and the most welcome of running mates, Fiona's father, Michael, and I am delighted to take the credit for tipping him over the edge.

  Michael had been extremely supportive and encouraging before my debut marathon, but only, I thought, out of healthy respect for any level of sporting endeavour which takes you out of your comfort zone. A skilled cyclist in his younger days, Michael had always had the sporting bug, and through his cycling he probably knew far more than I did about pushing yourself to the limit and beyond. Little did I know that he had been contemplating a marathon of his own.

  Unknown to me, Michael had for many years seen the marathon as a great achievement, envying anyone who managed to complete the course. He later admitted that he had posted a ballot application to run the London in 1998, the year in which I had made my own marathon debut. How lovely it would have been to be novice marathon runners together. Sadly, however, he had been unsuccessful in the ballot, much to the relief of Stella – Fiona's mother – who pointed out that he had never run in any race whatsoever up to that point. But my London finishing photos niggled away at him to the extent that he decided to mark his 70th year in 2002 by having another attempt at getting into the London Marathon.

  Thus he embarked on what was to become a remarkable sequence of ballot rejections that has lasted to this day. Anyone else would take the hint and conclude that London really didn't want him, but not Michael. He wanted London, and he got it, finding a different way into the race which bypassed the main entry ballot. After the initial rejection from the London Marathon organisers, he made an application for one of six places that were offered by The Times newspaper. Just after Christmas 2001, he was told that he could have a place provided that he ran for charity.

  After all the trauma of grandson Callum's arrival in this world, Michael opted for Tommy's, a charity which supports premature babies. This left him 16 weeks to do some training and to try to raise as much sponsorship as possible. Michael was up and running, and I couldn't have been more pleased.

  All sorts of reasons militate against us running together, not least the fact that Fiona's parents live in Colchester, 140 miles away from our home in Hampshire. Even more significantly, Michael and I run at a very different pace, not surprisingly given that there are 31 years between us. But I welcomed him warmly into the running fold for so many reasons. We'd always got on well, but maybe this was the point at which the usual father-in-law/son-in-law relationship developed into the firm friendship we now enjoy.

  I'd got together with Fiona in 1986 towards the end of our modern languages degrees at Oxford, the university Michael had also attended, completing his doctorate there just before Fiona was born. His encouragement was central to my decision to return there – with Fiona in 1987 – to embark on my own doctoral research. A university librarian, Michael was well versed in research at that level. He knew what was required, and it was helpful to have someone within the family who had been there before. I completed my PhD – or DPhil, as Oxford prefers to call it – in 1990, confident that an Oxford doctorate would do wonders for my approval ratings as far as Michael was concerned.

  And now the boot was on the other foot. Just as Michael had blazed the academic trail for me to follow, so now he was dipping into my world of marathons – much to my delight. It was a vindication as much as anything else; proof – to my mind – that running stupidly long distances wasn't necessarily a daft thing to do. Of course, I loved the bizarreness of it anyway, but if two of us within the family were at it, then somehow it was legitimised. It helped that it was no longer just me doing it.

  Just as importantly, it gave me someone to swap ideas with, someone to share the enthusiasm with. I wasn't a club runner; I was fitting in running whenever I could. Now, in Michael, I suddenly had someone to chew the running cud with. For Michael's first marathon, I enjoyed dispensing my own wisdom and experience, much as Pamela had done for me four years before, and this helped my own confidence grow. But, in reality, it was an instant rapport of running equals, the link not forged by any superior knowledge on my part, but by a meeting of two rather stubborn (OK, very stubborn) people united in a common cause. The pleasure of the relationship was that he now 'understood', just as I 'understood', and the value of that is incalculable.

  London 2002 was my hypochondria marathon. I took co-codamol, paracetamol and a couple of ibuprofen before starting. I also, for no particular reason, took the diarrhoea medicine Arret; ironic really, given that arret-ing was the very last thing I wanted to do. The problem was that my deformities were catching up with me. My knees were a mess; stiff, aching and awkward. As the race approached, I ran into trouble. My big dream was to run the marathon in under four hours, and, in the final few weeks, I could see that dream evaporating. It was gutting. Grumpy became my middle name.

  For London first time round, my bandy-leggedness had been negated simply by well-chosen running shoes. Alexandra Sports had directed me to the best possible match to compensate against my tendency to roll my foot inwards, and it had been enough.

  But six weeks before the London Marathon of 2002, I did a three-hour 20-mile run and discovered – perhaps because my imperfection and its consequences had worsened – that 20 miles was now the limit of my shoes/knees without prosthetics, those artificial devices or extensions which replace or correct a missing or malfunctioning body part. I was rolling my foot/leg inwards as I ran, which didn't simply twist my knee; it was also wastefully inefficient. Nature was failing; science needed to step in.

  I saw a physio who massaged my legs, showed me some exercises and told me which prosthetics to order – a pair of shaped plastic pieces which sit in the shoe just under the arch of the foot to prevent it from rolling over and inwards. He was confident they would do the trick, and suddenly there was hope. But the first time I wore them, after two weeks without a run, I quickly developed some spectacular blisters just where they rubbed, particularly on my left foot. The skin flopped with fluid. A pin seemed the only option – unwise, I know, but at least it brought some relief – until the fluid built up again. Frankly, my foot looked awful.

  Fortunately, by the time race day dawned, the healing had started, but one way or another the final weeks of my training had been poor, erratic and sore. My knees still ached and were occasionally sharply painful, and I had no idea what I might be about to open up on the soles of my feet. Confidence ran out the door. Fear took ever-greater hold, and sleeplessness was my nightly companion. You need everything to come right if you are to run a good race. Absolutely everything. My 2002 London Marathon bid was punctured below the waterline before I even started, I moaned. And then moaned some more.

  On the morning of the marathon, my knees were still tender. I worried whether they could possibly withstand the endless pounding of 26.2 miles, and I let the worry go round and round in my mind. I just wanted to get out there and get started, but at the same time I was dreading it.

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p; But at least there was the extra companionship to look forward to. The night before the marathon, Michael and my mother-in-law, Stella, stayed in the same hotel as Fiona and I did, just by Charing Cross Station, perfectly situated for the early-morning train to Greenwich for the start.

  The children stayed with my parents in Gosport for the weekend, and while Fiona and her mum took in shops and museums on the Saturday afternoon, Michael and I enjoyed four hours of total inertia in the hotel room, flicking through endless TV channels, reserving for each the attention span of a flea as we resolutely refused to do anything likely to expend any energy. We wrapped ourselves in cotton wool for an afternoon of utter idleness. Towards the end, even channel-hopping became too energetic as we whiled away the hours watching some obscure sport on an even more obscure channel. Whenever we've done a marathon since, Saturday-afternoon indolence has been a vital warm-up to our Sunday-morning exertions.

  Adding to the pleasure on the Sunday, of course, was the fact that I now had someone to travel to the start with. This really was going to be a family marathon, and Michael and I lapped up the atmosphere before going our separate ways to our respective start points. We were starting several hundred yards apart. His aim was to finish, mine was to break four hours.

  After a minute's silence for the Queen Mother, who had died two weeks before the race, we got underway in warm and pleasant conditions. Soon the miles were slipping past, and with them my fears. My knees were holding up remarkably well. So far. They were bruised and tender, but they weren't holding me back – to my huge relief. More miles came and went, and still no major discomfort.

  I passed the halfway point after 1 hour 51 minutes, a time which horrifies me now but which at the time seemed fine. It was 14 minutes short of the time it took the men's winner to complete the entire course, but for an also-ran like me, it was perfectly acceptable. Even better, things continued to go well for the next 4 or 5 miles. But then suddenly I started to wonder if I hadn't gone off too quickly at the start. It wasn't knee-related, but I was starting to flag, a problem not helped by the fact that by now I was going through some of the dullest sections of the course.

  Here, however, the crowd really started to come into its own. I started playing the name game in earnest. My name was on my chest this time round, and I wanted everyone to shout it out. The really valuable support comes from the people who take the next step. They don't just call out your name. They catch your eye. By this stage, I wanted the personal touch, and I was rewarded with some lovely, encouraging smiles.

  My race became a tactical search for encouragement. All the way along there were children standing with their hands outstretched, wanting you to touch them as you went by. I tried to indulge them. They were there for us, after all. The least we could do was let them touch a real athlete. Either that or touch me. Just as welcome were the outstretched hands bearing sweeties – jelly babies and the like. I soon learned to avoid the sweets still in wrappers. More hygienic, yes, but hardly practical in the circumstances. I took what I could, and it did me good.

  I reached the 20-mile marker in a time of 2:51, which is when I started to panic a little. My prospects of coming in inside four hours were starting to drift away. Slowly but surely, I was starting to feel ghastly. I was now markedly slowing, and the miles became a haze, with confusion creeping in. I remember thinking that I would later curse myself for hobbling so slowly, but then, thoroughly losing the plot, I found myself turning on an imagined future self and saying, 'Well, you bloody try it then!' Between two mile markers in the early 20s I wasn't sure for a while which mile I was on – which was shockingly bad given how little else there was to think about. How hard can it be to keep one number in your head?

  Fortunately, walking wasn't an option. It was easier to keep trying to run, however badly. I was trying to drink more, thinking I hadn't drunk enough. At least I now knew not to get overexcited at the first sight of Big Ben. There was still a long way to go. Slowly, very slowly, I chipped into it. Twenty-four miles came and went and so did twenty-five. It is astonishing to read that Paula Radcliffe did her 25th mile in 5 minutes 5 seconds that day. Mine was double that and more. But there was good news too. I forced myself into some calculations, and clearly sub-four was back on. There was a voice inside my head now telling me not to blow it, that this was my golden chance. A voice kept telling me, 'Come on, you don't want to have to do it again.'

  Once again, I started picking out people to shout my name. And the people were responding, little angels in the crowd locking on to those of us on our last legs and desperate. Then, suddenly, it was all starting to happen quicker than I had thought it would. Big Ben came and went. And then we were on Birdcage Walk, running towards a big sign saying '800 metres'. I thought, How am I supposed to know how far that is? Confusion was taking hold again. All I knew was that Birdcage Walk seemed to stretch forever. But then I turned and turned again to catch my first sight of the finish line.

  I had about five minutes in hand on four hours. And then I was listening to the guy over the tannoy urging everyone on to a sub-four finish. It had taken me 2 minutes 37 seconds to get over the start line, so I knew that even if the big clock over the finishing line said four hours, I would achieve my aim. The tannoy man was shouting, 'Less than four hours! How good does that feel! Come on! Come on!' He was fantastic. He drained the last drop out of me. He reeled me in to the end of the race.

  I got over the line and ran slap bang into a great wave of exhaustion that took my legs out from under me. I staggered and wobbled, and from nowhere a rock-solid hand – once again – was suddenly under my elbow, steadying me and keeping me moving. The frightening thing was that I was hyperventilating, a horrible panting noise that I couldn't control. I feared I was going to suffocate.

  I wanted (being very well brought up) to thank the guy who steadied me, because without him I would have been flat on the ground. He had intervened in the very nick of time. I so wanted to thank him, but I couldn't talk through my foghorn-sounding breathing. And when I did say something, I'm sure it didn't make sense. He was steadying me still as I collected my medal.

  I guess the way I felt simply underlines the huge emotional investment we make when we run a marathon. Crossing the finishing line is a trauma in itself. Just seeing it can be too. Stella later told me she saw a runner turn the corner for her first sight of the finish and promptly collapse. The shock of finally seeing the thing she'd craved was all too much for her, and sadly she was stretchered away, recording after her name those tragic three letters: DNF. Did not finish. So close and yet so very, very far.

  I had made it home, though. I was barely in one piece, but I was home all the same – and for me, it was a landmark result, the first time I'd entered the exalted ranks of the sub-four runners.

  2002 was also a landmark year for the event. For the first time, the ChampionChip in your shoe was activated as you passed the start line and not just as you passed the finish line. It meant that you had an actual running, or chip, time, rather than the useless 'gun time', which hadn't accounted for how long it took you to get over the start. Marathons were going electronic, and technology was taking over. All the results were on The Times website that night.

  My official time was recorded as 3:56:24 – just over 14.5 minutes better than my first London Marathon in 1998, an improvement which brought a significant step-up in my finishing position. I came in 11,016th out of about 33,000 finishers. In 1998 I had been 16,005th. An improvement of just under 15 minutes moved me up around 5,000 places. In other words, I was now approaching the race's peak finishing time.

  All that remained to do at the time, however, was to stagger to the family meeting point where Fiona awaited, having seen me three times on the course – which would have been a huge boost if I had managed to see her. I now had the prospect of a trip to the MS reception, which involved crossing the marathon course at about 25.5 miles. The wait was endless as we joined the thousands trying to find a way through, but it was worth i
t.

  When we finally got to the reception, there were very few runners to be seen. Many must have given up trying to get across the road in their fragile state – which meant all the more attention for me. There was no queue for the massage. In fact, I had a masseuse on each leg and one on my back. The only problem was that I could hardly hear a thing – one of the weirder post-marathon episodes I have ever experienced. I started to panic, asking the masseuses what was happening. In my supersensitive state, I was starting to get frightened. One of the girls suggested it was the pounding for all those hours; another said it was the result of prolonged exposure to the crowd noise; I couldn't hear what the third one said. I've certainly never experienced anything like it since, but it was a suitable ending to my hypochondria marathon.

  Fortunately, however, something rather cheerier was steadily approaching on the horizon. Michael. He made it home in 6 hours 36 minutes. Not the time he'd wanted, but few runners ever actually do the time they want. The fact was that he'd done it. He'd completed the course. It was a glorious double. And for me, it was a chance to ask him a question I had been burning to ask.