Don't Stop Me Now

by Vassos Alexander

  I’d been sent with a cameraman to interview the Sweden striker Henrik Larsson ahead of the Manchester United vs. Barcelona Champions League final (Larsson played for both clubs). At the time he was at Helsingborgs in his native country, a short drive from Copenhagen, where we landed late in the evening. After driving around aimlessly for a long while, we eventually found our hotel, which seemed to be located in the dead centre of nowhere. We switched off the engine and as the car lights went out, we found ourselves in total darkness. There was no other light, and no other car in the car park. There was also nobody at the reception desk and, as far as we could tell, no other guests. The entire hotel seemed completely deserted.

  We double-checked, and yes, this did indeed seem to be the place the BBC had booked us into. Cameraman Andy mentioned that this was exactly the sort of set-up you’d find in a horror film, at which point we both privately became petrified.

  Of course working for the BBC we were no strangers to spending the night in some ropey old places (some lovely ones too, I should add), but this hotel took the biscuit. It felt like we were extras in some Danish version of The Shining, and we half-expected Jack Nicholson to appear any moment wielding an axe. We seriously discussed heading back to Copenhagen and paying for an airport hotel out of our own money.

  Ultimately, miserliness prevailed, and we managed to rouse someone on the phone who reluctantly came to check us in. He didn’t look happy about the intrusion, and to be perfectly honest he didn’t look entirely sane. Still, he thrust a pair of ancient-looking keys at us, waved us in what we assumed was the direction of our rooms and turned away.

  But it turns out Andy is made of stern stuff, and wasn’t going to be distracted from our overriding objective of the past few hours by the small matter of a psychopath receptionist in the Overlook Hotel’s Danish sister. We were both starving, and he asked if there was any chance of some food. No chance at all, came back the brisk reply, along with a frankly murderous stare. You’ve got to hand it to Andy: if this was to be his last night on Earth, he was refusing to face it hungry. Anywhere round here we might find a shop then? No. A sandwich? No. Then could we possibly just get a slice of bread from the kitchen? No. No. And No. But eventually even Andy crumbled, and with stomachs rumbling and nerves still jangling, we retired to our spartan rooms. Sleep, when it came, didn’t last long. The threadbare curtains weren’t much good at their job so at 5am, as the sun rose over Scandinavia, my little room was flooded with bright light and I woke up. At least I’m still alive, was my initial conscious thought.

  I got out of bed and shuffled to the window. What I saw through it moved me deeply. It turns out the hotel was situated in one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen.

  Impossible to believe that five hours previously I’d seriously feared for my safety! Here I was in a clean, cosy bedroom, looking out of the window at a blood-orange sun rising above an expanse of dazzling white sand and lush marshland. Beyond the mossy green acres was the icy blue Baltic Sea, and dominating the whole exuberant vista was the simply staggering Øresund Bridge (which at this point I’d never even heard of). Five miles long, double-tiered to take trains as well as cars between Sweden and Denmark, it’s a vast, many-legged concrete arc standing proudly above the sea as it curves round to the right and out of sight over the horizon. In the centre, it’s crowned by four colossal, triangular, cable-supporting towers. Magnificent.

  Funny what some light does to alter the perspective. All of a sudden I was pleased the crummy curtains had got me out of bed a few hours earlier than planned. And I was doubly pleased to have thought to pack my running shoes. I left my room with a spring in my step, passed the same guy on reception who no longer looked menacing and even managed a sleepy half-wave as I skipped down the corridor.

  Outside into the luminous morning, and away... At this stage of my running career, I’d rarely manage more than about 60 or 70 minutes before returning exhausted. But this morning I was delighted to have hours to play with if I wanted them. Which, I discovered, I did. I drank in the scenery, the solitude, the imposing man-made spectre above me. Enjoyed the fact that I had a job that allowed me, paid me, to come to beautiful places and run, before chatting to fascinating people. Enjoyed the fact that I felt strong and fit, that I wasn’t in any hurry, and even – or perhaps especially – enjoyed the juxtaposition between the current feeling of near-euphoria and the ludicrous pantomime terror of the previous evening. I was probably out running for two hours, and it felt like a bit of a breakthrough.

  Only a shame that the much-vaunted interview with Larsson was a little feeble in the end. A Swedish TV crew had also turned up to see him, but whilst I’d been out enjoying my morning exercise, they’d been busy artfully erecting a scaffolding backdrop with replicas of all his old club shirts draped from it (I mean, for heaven’s sake!). They also brought along a leather trouser-wearing supermodel to conduct the interview. Henrik took one look at her, another at Andy and me, and decided to spend 56 minutes of his free hour with the Swedes.

  We returned to Television Centre with a coupe of brief, lacklustre answers given as he walked back to his car. If only Henrik had known – we almost died to get that interview!

  Steve Cram CBE

  World 1500m Champion and Olympic Medallist. Once set three separate world records in 19 days. BBC Sports Personality of the Year, now a leading athletics commentator and presenter.

  Right from the very beginning, what I loved about running was the idea that you do it on your own terms – you go as fast or as slow as you want to. That’s one thing that really drew me to the sport. The other, obviously, was being quite good at it.

  I’m pretty shallow, so anything I think I’m better at than other people, I instinctively like. I guess I’m also a bit selfish, and what hooked me early on was the contrast with the team sports we used to play. Unlike football and basketball, running isn’t about the team. Running is all about me.

  Growing up in Jarrow, we used to race round what we called The Block. It was a group of houses, probably about 400m all the way round. And one Sunday morning before lunch, when I was about nine or ten, we decided to change the rules a bit. Instead of racing round The Block once, we thought we would just run and keep going and going for as long as we could. See who dropped last. Well, the upshot is I won and won easily, and that’s the first time I remember thinking, ‘I’m a bit better at this than the other lads.’

  So two years later when I went to senior school, and the first thing we did in games was cross country, I was actually looking forward to it. And I suddenly realised that running was something I loved. All the titles, all the medals, all the world records – they all started life on that Sunday morning in Jarrow.

  I’m a recreational runner now. It’s my relaxation as much as anything else, and when I’m running, I can just think. It’s also the easiest way to keep fit. I travel a lot on the athletics commentary circuit, so I can simply pack my shoes and shorts and I’m away. And travelling widely as I do, running is a wonderful way of exploring new places, new cities, new routes. I don’t listen to music as I go because when I run, I’m too busy taking in the environment.

  Also, I never stress about my pace. But occasionally, if I’m somewhere like one of the big parks in London, people see me and think, ‘Wow, it’s Steve Cram – I’m going to overtake him.’ So to be honest I prefer running where nobody knows who the hell I am.

  And these days I often find myself out with fellow former international athletes who are as out of shape as I am – so I do wonder what people think when they see two or three of us out for a waddle. And in my case, it really has become a waddle.

  We talk about the old days as we go. But the worst thing recently is Paula Radcliffe’s decision to join the BBC commentary team. I’ve been out for two runs with her this year, and find myself just hanging on for dear life, saying nothing, hurting everywhere, letting her do all the talking.

  4

  Spencer Davis Group, Keep on Running />
  ‘Outlaw’ Ironman Triathlon, Mile 4

  Have I mentioned that it’s hot? And I don’t mean hot as in warm, pleasant, sunny, balmy, temperate, agreeable or lovely. Today is hot as in boiling, sweltering, blazing, burning, melting, scorching and stewing. Hot as in you’d think twice before ambling to the shops for an ice cream because you’d be too exhausted by the time you got there to enjoy your Cornetto. Hot as in you feel yourself burning in the shade despite the factor 50 you’ve just re-applied. Hot like the Sahara. Hot like a sauna... H O T!

  So as I stagger into mile four, with almost 90% of this marathon still in front of me, I naturally start worrying about Andy Murray.

  Because on this July afternoon whilst I’m trying to prove something to myself (not quite sure what exactly, but definitely something), Andy is 150 miles due south trying to win a tennis match. But not just any tennis match. He’s on Centre Court at Wimbledon along with 15,000 fortunate fans and millions more watching on TV, playing and desperately trying to beat the Number One player in the world. He’s also trying to win a cheque for £1.6m and overturn 77 years of British sporting history in the process. For the second time in 12 months, Murray stands one victory away from becoming a national hero, the first British man since the 1930s to win Wimbledon. And if it’s this hot up here, I keep thinking, imagine how hot it is in London. And if I’m struggling with the heat and I’m Greek, how can Scottish Andy possibly be coping?

  Silly, really, the lengths you go to take your mind off things. Another five miles, I decide arbitrarily, and I’ll allow myself to find out the latest score from SW19.

  Thirty seconds later I can’t help myself.

  ‘How’s Andy Murray getting on?’ I blurt to the nearest spectator.

  ‘He’s just broken the Djokovic serve in the first set!’ comes back the cheerful reply.

  Brilliant news, and just what I needed to hear. Right then, if Andy can do it – so can I. No more moaning about heat, injuries and stomach cramps. No more feeling sorry for myself. Onwards....

  It’s day one at my new school, and everyone is laughing at me. Even the Head. Especially the Head. In fact they went and found the Head with the express purpose of giving him a giggle at my expense.

  I should explain.

  I’d been to see a very clever sports doctor, Simon Kemp (who also looks after the England rugby team, and from whom more later), and he suggested I get my running gait analysed and improved to prevent further injuries. The place he suggested is called The Running School, located in an unassuming gym-like space underneath some railway arches in Chiswick, West London.

  The Head in question is Mike Antoniades, and he might just be the world’s leading expert on running technique. His interest in the subject was born when he had to retire from playing football because of a succession of knee problems. He simply couldn’t understand why he’d recover from each injury, but still couldn’t comfortably run. The specialists were equally baffled. All of this was long before the Internet, so Mike’s only option was to start researching his problem in a library. He read every book he could get his hands on about the human nervous system, whilst simultaneously beginning to work with elite athletes.

  ‘That’s when I started noticing a link between running technique and what I now call movement re-patterning,’ he tells me. ‘So I began experimenting on myself, running 5k, 10k races, getting a lot of injuries in the process. Physiotherapists could treat the pain – but a huge part of rehab is returning to running correctly, so I started thinking about the cause rather than the symptom.’

  It’s now six years since my last visit as a pupil but I’m back at the Running School, chatting to Mike in a side room close to the treadmill where I’d once caused him so much mirth. I’m embarrassed, because he still remembers that original visit vividly. Apparently very few clients are as bad, as comically bad, as I was.

  ‘You were interesting, to put it mildly. Totally, and I mean totally, uncoordinated limbs. These days I categorise runners – bad runners – into four groups. The Thumpers hit the ground really hard. The Shufflers barely lift their feet. The Slows could walk faster than they run – you often see them in the park at weekends. And you were an Octopus: arms and legs all over the place.’

  What I went on to learn at his school is that running is almost as much about your arms as your legs. My trainer was a ludicrously fit man called Dan Baker (as opposed to Danny Baker, who I’ve also worked with and is much funnier, but who I’d hesitate to describe as ludicrously fit). Anyway, whilst giving me seemingly endless exercises to strengthen my core and improve my stability, Dan taught me to concentrate on my arms. As Mike puts it:

  ‘Humans are cross lateral animals, so when we move the left leg, we also move the right arm. That’s the way we were designed. If you haven’t been taught that, and you don’t have the background of skills, then you just run how you think is normal. And in some cases, and you were one of them, it’s as if you’ve got four independent limbs going in four completely different directions.’

  So how come some people seem to be able to run beautifully, gracefully, instinctively, whilst others, like me, need to go to school simply to avoid looking like an octopus? Mike has a theory on this too.

  ‘A lot of people, and I suspect you were one of them [his suspicion is correct], didn’t do much sport at school or at a young age. Everyone develops at different rates, and these kids lagged behind their peers in terms of certain gross motor skills*. And this kid, who is a slow developer, he can’t catch or throw or kick as well as his mates, so he naturally shies away from sport – because he doesn’t want to be embarrassed.

  ‘Then suddenly the kid grows into his mid-thirties, and he starts getting fat. He decides to go for a run, and discovers he likes the way it makes him feel. And would you believe it? Our kid, now a man, finds out there’s more inside him than he thought possible – a good pair of lungs, good mental strength – but what he doesn’t have is any coordination between upper body and lower body. That’s where we come in. And as you discovered, it takes about six weeks to change how the brain activates the muscles, through something I call a movement map. And hey presto, six weeks on, and you started running properly.’

  To be honest, I’m still bristling from being described as an octopus. I once heard that the golfer Jim Furyk, genuinely good guy that he is, doesn’t mind his swing being described, famously, as ‘a man wrestling an octopus in a telephone box’. But I’m not as nice as Gentleman Jim, so I decide to retaliate – to test Mike’s theories a little, see how he stands up to some Paxman-like questioning. Mike, answer me this. How come for every athlete who runs beautifully with a perfect gait, for every Mo Farah, there’s a Priscah Jeptoo, who wins major marathons with knees collapsing inwards and ankles flailing outwards?

  Mike enthuses: ‘Actually, Mo is a good example. When his coach Alberto Salazar changed his arms, Mo was amazed at the difference it made to his speed. This is a world champion who at 28 years old moves his family to Portland where Salazar runs the Nike Oregon Project, and the first thing he does for six or eight weeks is work on his technique.’ Mike is definitely right about that. Indeed, Mo admits that before he went to work with Salazar, his technique was questionable. And as a measure of how much he improved, consider the 2008 to 2012 Olympic cycle. On the final Saturday of the London Games, Farah won his second gold medal in the 5,000m. The stadium was so noisy that people in seats near the roof had to put their fingers in their ears. Except they weren’t in their seats. They were standing up and cheering and yelling and beseeching Farah to dig deep and stay ahead of the two East Africans, Ethiopia’s Dejen Gebremeskel and Kenya’s Thomas Longosiwa, who looked like they were on the point of overtaking him throughout the agonising final lap. A final lap that took just 52 seconds by the way, and cemented Mo’s place as an all-time great of British sport. Four years earlier in Beijing, he’d failed to even reach the final.

  So what is so good about Mo’s running gait? I mean, he looks like he’s runn
ing on wheels and it’s a thing of great beauty to behold, but there’s also science behind the poetry. Experts have examined Farah from every angle, and having become a bit of a gait geek myself, I once compiled a list of what seemed to be the six key areas that make him so good. For what it’s worth, and for the benefit of similarly obsessed runners, here’s that list in full:

  1.No wasted energy

  The hips and shoulders stay level, while the legs move straight forward – making for a very efficient gait. Minimal energy is lost going sideways or up and down. There’s also no sign of either knee collapsing inwards, even at the end of a race when fatigued.

  2.Hang time

  Nobody was ever injured in mid-air, so they say. And the ‘stance’ time, the amount of time the foot is in contact with the ground, is very short. Again, this minimises energy loss.

  3.Mid-foot strike

  When the foot does land, it does so with the ball rather than the heel. This reduces impact on the ground, essentially making for a run that’s lighter on the feet.

  4.Cadence

  Not how, but where the foot lands: in this case just in front of the centre of gravity with the shin almost vertical – meaning minimal momentum is lost as the body travels over the foot to be ready to push off. This in turn allows for a high cadence, or leg turnover, increasing speed.

  5.Arm swing

  Yes we’re back to the arms. They’re unusually high, but bent at a perfect 90 degrees. This allows for excellent elbow drive.

  6.And relax

  Everything seems effortless: hands are open, shoulders loose and face muscles relaxed (compare and contrast to many athletes who clench their fists, hunch forwards and lock their jaws with the effort of it all). And as most sprinters will tell you, relaxed muscles go quicker than tense ones.