The new me

Tiny Tims Children’s Centre or Newlife.

Photograph Quiz:

Photo no. 24 or thereabouts:- You can see the stand, but where was it when the track was opened??

Dear Blog,

As my old granny used to say, ‘If you’ve not got nowt to say, don’t spend ages saying it.’ I haven’t been in contact this week as I’ve been busy decorating. Oh dear… I do not have space to tell you about that!! But the last week ….

Sunday:- No more trudging for me now, Blog. I applied for 10 tickets for the Olympic 100m Final. My wife says that there is more chance of me competing in the 100m Final than there is of my getting a ticket. I didn’t think it was the appropriate time to correct her about the number I had applied for as she was in one of her moods. Usually I go and sit in the shed until it passes, but I got rather hungry in my last four night stay. As that smoothy Mr Coe doesn’t seem to have cashed my cheque I sent to him, I gave some deep thought to what my wife had said about my running in the 100m Final. With a little reflection, I concluded that she had spoken a lot of statistical sense. So next year, it is the 100m Sprint Final for me. Sod this trudging business. 9.5 seconds of eyeballs out from now on, Blog old son. EYEBALLS OUT. The training starts now. Not a metre to lose.

Monday:- I did a warm up stood next to the radiator in the changing room, then it was out onto the track. I was not very warm as the heating had been switched off on the 1^st of April. I did a few stretches. I stretched a point. I stretched my credibility. I stretched the truth. I stretched four red rubber bands dropped by the postman.

Tuesday:- I had a sauna. It was just like being back in Finland. Hot, steamy, sweat oozing from every pore, then out into the snow, naked and a jump into the freezing lake under a clear blue sky. Exhilarating. Problem   it was not Finland but Coventry. It wasn’t deep winter with snow on the ground and ice on the water. It was May in England. The naked bit was OK except I forgot the door from the sauna opened on to the high street full of Tuesday  afternoon shoppers. And everyone knows that Tuesday is pensioners’ shopping day.. Running back in doors counted as my speed training for the day.

Wednesday:- I was going to do a session of free weights but they were cemented fast to the floor. I did some isotonic exercises instead. I felt quite refreshed when I had finished.

Thursday:- Track session. The planned routine with the other sprinters was:-

6 starts plus 5*100m flat out plus 1*200m at 75% effort then jogging the bends, sprinting the straights for one mile. Unfortunately I had a false start on my first attempt at starting, so under the new IAAF ruling, I was not allowed to take any further part in the proceedings. At least I was first to the Chip Shop and as my old coach used to say ‘Any first placing is better than no first placing. It gets you into the habit of winning.’ There’s no salt and vinegar on me Blog!

Friday:- Rest Day.

Saturday:- League Race. Although I wasn’t exactly asked to be part of the 100m race squad, I went along anyway and warmed up with the two sprinters in case either of them should pull something at the last minute. I would be ready to able to fill the breach and not let the club team down. They didn’t so I couldn’t.

I must say Blog, this sprint training lark is a dead doddle. Watch out Hussle Bolt, I’m on my way.

 Colin

Ps. If you didn’t get this message, Blog, then the world really did end at 6pm today.

Cyclic runnig

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

Barefoot in the park

Dear Blog,

      If you remember, I did mention the bare foot steeplechase last time Blog. Bare foot running was the vogue in the mid 60s, and a few of us (a very few of us) at University ran bare foot – no wonders I have to trudge so slowly now. At least the water jump water washed the blood away from the raw flesh on the sole of the feet caused by the cinder track!!! Three years ago, after a gap of 40 years, I decided to run a steeplechase again to help out my club at a Midland League race and gain some soft points, there being few ‘B’ steeple chasers. At the start of the race, my intention had been run at the rear of the field and to step on top of each barrier, being 40 years short of hurdling practice. If I could pick off the other two ‘B’ runners, that would count as an added bonus to the 6 points which were already in the bag.  I don’t like wearing glasses and only wear mine when necessary. I never wear them to run in. Coming up to the first barrier after the initial 100 metre start, it quickly dawned on me that I was unable to focus clearly on the top of the first hurdle. As the barrier bore down the straight towards me at an alarming speed, some important decisions had to be made. It now appeared likely that I might have to borrow the grounds man ladder to negotiate the obstacle in front of me. But he was no where to be seen. These workmen are never around when they are wanted. Praying to any deity that might be taking a passing interest in my plight, I duly arrived at said barrier lacking enough speed to carry me over! I gained the top but then the lack of forward momentum, as any one who has studied the more complex mathematical theory of motion will tell you, meant I had to return from whence I came. I had to retrace my steps back down the home straight to have another crack at the problem. This drama was unfolding at the end of the home straight where all the athletes and spectators were seated in the stand and on the grassy bank. They began to take an interest in the proceedings. I did appreciate their support when I finally struggled over. It was rather remiss of both the timekeepers and place judges not to pay attention to my progress. They were so intent of recording the finishing times that they totally missed my over taking one of the other ‘B’ runners. Although we were a couple of laps behind the field, I was rather impressed with the way I dashed passed him. I think the crowd failed to see my effort as well. Coming up to the bell, the bell didn’t toll for me but for whom it did toll? It did ring out loud and clear for last competitor now some 40 yards behind. I flew over the final water jump in style and Hemery would have been proud of my final hurdle. The lap counter was still showing ‘1’ as I sprinted for the finish. ‘One lap to go’ shouted the official as I crossed the finish line.You are taking the piss, mate???  I did mentally question the sanity of the man, but those 7 points might prove decisive for the club’s promotion hopes at the end of the season. Now was not the time to enter into discussion about distance travelled, hurdles jumped, waters swam.  I must have miscounted the laps in my excitement at participating in my old event again? I took off like a proverbial startled tortoise to complete my final final lap. Imagine my surprise when, on entering the straight for the last time I was cheered on by the athlete I had caught and passed several minutes earlier; surely he hadn’t thrown in the towel so late in the race? The WHIMP. What sort of athlete are we producing now a days? Keino wouldn’t have jacked it in. Before I could stop waving my arms in triumph at the finish, the chief judge came over to me. ‘Sorry Colin, we miscounted. You did one lap too many.’!!! I kid you not, dear Blog. I would not joke about such a thing. I tried to hug him with the lap counter stand, but he rejected my advance and moved away at the last moment. If you are in any doubt, go to the Midland Counties Office in Solihull and consult the results of the meeting. It’s there for all to see in black and white stained with my sweat.

Will post a comment about a race which has just passed my front door when I have had my hot cocoa and complain.

Colin

PS just had another three donations for my charity Tiny Tims Children’s Charity and Newlife.    

A marathon for Blog

Dear Blog,

I thought that you might be interested to read about a Commemorative Marathon which took place in 2008 to celebrate the centenary of the 1908 Olympic Marathon, or at least to celebrate one of the trial races.

  There were several trial races held in different parts of the country to help to determine which athletes should have the honour of representing GB in the 1908 London Olympics. Of all the trials, the Coventry Trial was deemed to be the ‘first British marathon’ by Roger Gynn in his book ‘The Guinness Book of the Marathon’. It appears from the table (see below) that two trials were over the distance of 25 miles, but one is discredited. This was the reason for Gynn’s assertion that the Coventry Marathon was the ‘first’, as it was the nearest to what was then, the accepted marathon distance. It was not until the IAAF Congress on the 27^th May 1921that today’s distance (i.e. the same distance as the one covered in the 1908 Olympics, 42.195km) was officially adopted. 

  Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to celebrate the Coventry Trial, like the Hastings marathon,  on a date and over a course as close to the original 1908 event as possible. The Coventry Trial set off from the railway arches in Spon End, in front of the pub whose licensee was Coventry Godiva Harriers first athlete of national standing. 24 runners faced the starter. The race followed the course of Thomas Telford’s Turn Pike Toll Road, through the village of Allesley, through Meriden who’s residents claim to live ‘in the centre of England’, and on towards Birmingham, finishing at the West Bromwich Albion Football Ground, an athletics meeting, not a football match, having been staged there in the afternoon of the Trial Race, the finish of the marathon being the grand finale of the afternoon’s proceedings. It hurts me to record that it was Birchfield Harriers, not Godiva, who organised the marathon event! Birchfield, among other clubs, had a branch in Coventry at the time. ‘Sport and Play’ (May 4^th 1908) reported that ‘One never knows, but it is only reasonable to suppose that men will not persist in this sort of thing as a hobby. The work is too laborious and exhausting .. and occupies too much time.’ I make the assumption from this that not too many people in East Africa subscribed to the magazine? 

  Having organised races over a number of years, I have experienced first hand the huge problems local event organisers have had with the negative attitudes of the Road Traffic Management Department of Coventry City Council. I was therefore pleased to have the Centenary Celebration take place ninety nine years three hundred and sixty one days after the actual Trial event, and a mere fifty metres from the original course, thereby succeeding in my quest to achieve the date and course requirements for a Centenary Celebratory Event! Please pass the salt cellar! The original course is now crisscrossed with trunk roads and motorways, besides being covered in urban sprawl, so a little lateral thinking was required. Ideally the race was to appeal to runners who might think of themselves as being of incapable of finishing the whole marathon in one go (I know the feeling well!). To make the idea attractive to the target entrants, the marathon was therefore split into five manageable stages to be held on successive days thereby keeping the marathon challenge alive. In the event, practicalities forced the ‘prologue’ to be held on the Sunday before the May Day Bank Holiday; the other four stages taking place over the holiday weekend. The whole commemorative ‘N.P.Aerospace Marathon Tour of Coventry and Warwickshire’ was to end with a BBQ at the presentation. To add a little historical flavour to the proceedings, it was thought to be a good idea to name each stage after a local historical character. Well, I thought it would be a good idea to name each stage after a local historical character. As Bas Heatley, Brian Kilby, Dick Taylor, Bill Adcocks and Sheila Carey did not quite seem old enough (Well Sheila didn’t), Lord Leofric, Lady Godiva, the Black Prince, and Peeping Tom kindly agreed to act as stand ins. Now the brighter Road Runner Club members will have spotted that there is a shortage of one name? Well done! Because one of the Godiva club members, butcher Andy Smith, provided free, and cooked all the meat for the BBQ, prepared the salad and sweets, and organised the tents etc in front of the Godiva Harriers Clubhouse at the Coventry Track on the University of Warwick Campus, it seemed churlish not to acknowledge his huge contribution to the success of the proceedings. He would in no way contemplate the ‘Andy Smith 10k’ or anything similar; hence, at his suggestion, the Breakfast 10k Run came about!!!

   Stage One was the prologue, (Sunday April 27^th) named the Lady Godiva ‘5’, actually it was 8 kilometres. [Easier to work towards the required 42.195km in metric rather than imperial units.] Held in the Coventry War Memorial Park, on tarmac pathways lapping around the park perimeter for two and a bit laps. The park opened in 1921, plaques being placed at the foot of each tree to commemorated the dead of the First World War. Unfortunately further plaques have had to be dedicated after subsequent conflicts around the globe. Godiva Harriers lost some of their members in the Great War. Charlie Davenport was regarded as the club’s ‘marathon runner’, although I have been unable to find just what road distance races he ran in the London area. He died at the Battle of the Somme, leaving a young wife. He worked in the pit at Binley, one of many small villages which the city swallowed in later boundary changes. In the spirit of the Celebration, it was fitting therefore, that the first event should remember Davenport, Lines, and their team mates. Somewhat fortuitously, Coventry’s foremost distance runner [until Bas Heatley came along in the 60s] joined the colours very late ‘avoiding’ conscription, it being     deferred repeatedly because he worked on his father’s farm. As a member of the Machine Gun Corp, he saw little action as he was sent out to India, where he ran and won his first distance races.

  The second stage (Friday May 2^nd) was the Peeping Tom Time Trial held in Allesley Park on the outskirts of the city over a distance of 4.195 kilometres [Clever stuff this - the distance employed allowed the other three stages to be 10 kilometres each and the cumulative total to equal the full marathon distance]. The original Marathon Trial passed through Allesley village about 200m from the Stage Two Time Trial. One of the city’s enlightened philanthropists had a boy’s boarding school in the park a few years before the foundation of Godiva Harriers; he held school sports for pupils and old boys at a time when such things were rarely heard of. When Allesley Hall was rebuilt on a grander scale, Lord Illiffe allowed local sports to be held in his grounds, actually within spitting distanceof the route of the

Toll Road

used by the Trial. The runners in the Tour of Coventry and Warwickshire ran the trial as a handicap, the slowest runner in the first stage being sent away first, a la Tour de France.

  Lord Aylesford gave permission for the roads on his private estate to be used for Saturday’s Black Prince 10 kilometre third stage. The turning point in the deer park was about 50 metres from the course of the 1908 run. Runners on this stage had the delightful vista of the stately Packington Hall, herons on the misty lake and deer wander across the course. Crossing the pack horse bridge over the ford added to the nostalgia of a time with no traffic – the original trial being ‘followed by hordes of cyclists on bikes’.

  Sunday May 4^th was the Lord Leofric 10k held on the Fen End Test Track, more used to seeing Aston Martin and Subaru cars screaming around the circuit than sweaty runners plodding their weary way along the bitumen. The disparity was stark. The 1908 marathoners could scarcely have conceived of either the sports cars presently using the circuit for testing or the rumble from aircraft returning from missions, landing on the mile long straight when it had been previously used as a war time airstrip.  

  May Day (Monday May 5^th) brought the event to within 4 days of the actual centenary of the Coventry Olympic Trail; the Breakfast 10 kilometres was held around the University of Warwick campus, which despite its name, is in the city of Coventry! The flat two lap course invariably produces fast times …. but not after doing 20 miles in a previous four days! At least the thought of the presentation cum BBQ and a final marathon time put some slight spring into the steps of the competitors.

***Note: because of difficulties with the part of the course that ran through Wormwood Scrubs and the fact that the stadium for the Games was not completed until a month after the ‘Olympic Course’ Trial, the distance is questioned by many statisticians. The scepticism seems to be justified when the times of all the competitors are examined, not just that of the winner. Further evidence is advanced by A.E.H Winter in his booklet "From The Legend To The Living" who confirms that ‘the Marathon trial race organised by the Polytechnic Harriers was indeed 22½  miles’. Winter was the ‘Poly’ marathon organiser for many years and bestowed upon me the dubious honour of being one of the few athletes to be disqualified from a national championships for cheating! 

Venue	Date	Distance	Winner	Time	Organiser?
Manchester	21 March	19 miles	Fred Lord	1:50:23	Salford Harriers
South London	28 March	20 miles	Fred Thompson	2:08:30.	Ranelagh Harriers
Liverpool	4 April	18 miles	William Clarke	1:46:08	Liverpool Harriers
South London	4 April	24 miles 670 yds.	E.R.Small	2:51:02	Blackheath Harriers
Derby	11 April	22 miles 1380 yds.	E.Eglington	2:37:40	?
Olympic Course***	25 April	25 miles***	Alex Duncan	2:15 :45	Polytechnic Harriers
Coventry	9 May	25 miles	Jack Price	2:37:13	Birchfield Harriers
Olympic Course	23 May	22 miles 1420 yds.	J.B.Powell	2:28:23	South London Harriers

A marathon story

Dear Blog,

I thought before our little letter exchange ended, you mighthave a passing interest in the history of your chosen event. So here is a little story about an event in Coventry a couple of years ago to celebrate the centenary of the first marathon in England.

There were several trial races held in different parts of the country to help to determine which athletes should have the honour of representing GB in the 1908 London Olympics (see below). Of all the trials, the Coventry Trial was deemed to be the ‘first British marathon’ by Roger Gynn in his book ‘The Guinness Book of the Marathon’. It appears from the table (see below) that two trials were over the distance of 25 miles, but one is discredited. This was the reason for Gynn’s assertion that the Coventry Marathon was the ‘first’, as it was the nearest to what was then, the accepted marathon distance. It was not until the IAAF Congress on the 27^th May 1921that today’s distance (i.e. the same distance as the one covered in the 1908 Olympics, 42.195km) was officially adopted. 

  Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to celebrate the Coventry Trial, like the Hastings marathon,  on a date and over a course as close to the original 1908 event as possible. The Coventry Trial set off from the railway arches in Spon End, in front of the pub whose licensee was Coventry Godiva Harriers first athlete of national standing. 24 runners faced the starter. The race followed the course of Thomas Telford’s Turn Pike Toll Road, through the village of Allesley, through Meriden who’s residents claim to live ‘in the centre of England’, and on towards Birmingham, finishing at the West Bromwich Albion Football Ground, an athletics meeting, not a football match, having been staged there in the afternoon of the Trial Race, the finish of the marathon being the grand finale of the afternoon’s proceedings. It hurts me to record that it was Birchfield Harriers, not Godiva, who organised the marathon event! Birchfield, among other clubs, had a branch in Coventry at the time. ‘Sport and Play’ (May 4^th 1908) reported that ‘One never knows, but it is only reasonable to suppose that men will not persist in this sort of thing as a hobby. The work is too laborious and exhausting .. and occupies too much time.’ I make the assumption from this that not too many people in East Africa subscribed to the magazine? 

  Having organised races over a number of years, I have experienced first hand the huge problems local event organisers have had with the negative attitudes of the Road Traffic Management Department of Coventry City Council. I was therefore pleased to have the Centenary Celebration take place ninety nine years three hundred and sixty one days after the actual Trial event, and a mere fifty metres from the original course, thereby succeeding in my quest to achieve the date and course requirements for a Centenary Celebratory Event! Please pass the salt cellar! The original course is now crisscrossed with trunk roads and motorways, besides being covered in urban sprawl, so a little lateral thinking was required. Ideally the race was to appeal to runners who might think of themselves as being of incapable of finishing the whole marathon in one go (I know the feeling well!). To make the idea attractive to the target entrants, the marathon was therefore split into five manageable stages to be held on successive days thereby keeping the marathon challenge alive. In the event, practicalities forced the ‘prologue’ to be held on the Sunday before the May Day Bank Holiday; the other four stages taking place over the holiday weekend. The whole commemorative ‘N.P.Aerospace Marathon Tour of Coventry and Warwickshire’ was to end with a BBQ at the presentation. To add a little historical flavour to the proceedings, it was thought to be a good idea to name each stage after a local historical character. Well, I thought it would be a good idea to name each stage after a local historical character. As Bas Heatley, Brian Kilby, Dick Taylor, Bill Adcocks and Sheila Carey did not quite seem old enough (Well Sheila didn’t), Lord Leofric, Lady Godiva, the Black Prince, and Peeping Tom kindly agreed to act as stand ins. Now the brighter Road Runner Club members will have spotted that there is a shortage of one name? Well done! Because one of the Godiva club members, butcher Andy Smith, provided free, and cooked all the meat for the BBQ, prepared the salad and sweets, and organised the tents etc in front of the Godiva Harriers Clubhouse at the Coventry Track on the University of Warwick Campus, it seemed churlish not to acknowledge his huge contribution to the success of the proceedings. He would in no way contemplate the ‘Andy Smith 10k’ or anything similar; hence, at his suggestion, the Breakfast 10k Run came about!!!

   Stage One was the prologue, (Sunday April 27^th) named the Lady Godiva ‘5’, actually it was 8 kilometres. [Easier to work towards the required 42.195km in metric rather than imperial units.] Held in the Coventry War Memorial Park, on tarmac pathways lapping around the park perimeter for two and a bit laps. The park opened in 1921, plaques being placed at the foot of each tree to commemorated the dead of the First World War. Unfortunately further plaques have had to be dedicated after subsequent conflicts around the globe. Godiva Harriers lost some of their members in the Great War. Charlie Davenport was regarded as the club’s ‘marathon runner’, although I have been unable to find just what road distance races he ran in the London area. He died at the Battle of the Somme, leaving a young wife. He worked in the pit at Binley, one of many small villages which the city swallowed in later boundary changes. In the spirit of the Celebration, it was fitting therefore, that the first event should remember Davenport, Lines, and their team mates. Somewhat fortuitously, Coventry’s foremost distance runner [until Bas Heatley came along in the 60s] joined the colours very late ‘avoiding’ conscription, it being     deferred repeatedly because he worked on his father’s farm. As a member of the Machine Gun Corp, he saw little action as he was sent out to India, where he ran and won his first distance races.

  The second stage (Friday May 2^nd) was the Peeping Tom Time Trial held in Allesley Park on the outskirts of the city over a distance of 4.195 kilometres [Clever stuff this - the distance employed allowed the other three stages to be 10 kilometres each and the cumulative total to equal the full marathon distance]. The original Marathon Trial passed through Allesley village about 200m from the Stage Two Time Trial. One of the city’s enlightened philanthropists had a boy’s boarding school in the park a few years before the foundation of Godiva Harriers; he held school sports for pupils and old boys at a time when such things were rarely heard of. When Allesley Hall was rebuilt on a grander scale, Lord Illiffe allowed local sports to be held in his grounds, actually within spitting distanceof the route of the

Toll Road

used by the Trial. The runners in the Tour of Coventry and Warwickshire ran the trial as a handicap, the slowest runner in the first stage being sent away first, a la Tour de France.

  Lord Aylesford gave permission for the roads on his private estate to be used for Saturday’s Black Prince 10 kilometre third stage. The turning point in the deer park was about 50 metres from the course of the 1908 run. Runners on this stage had the delightful vista of the stately Packington Hall, herons on the misty lake and deer wander across the course. Crossing the pack horse bridge over the ford added to the nostalgia of a time with no traffic – the original trial being ‘followed by hordes of cyclists on bikes’.

  Sunday May 4^th was the Lord Leofric 10k held on the Fen End Test Track, more used to seeing Aston Martin and Subaru cars screaming around the circuit than sweaty runners plodding their weary way along the bitumen. The disparity was stark. The 1908 marathoners could scarcely have conceived of either the sports cars presently using the circuit for testing or the rumble from aircraft returning from missions, landing on the mile long straight when it had been previously used as a war time airstrip.  

  May Day (Monday May 5^th) brought the event to within 4 days of the actual centenary of the Coventry Olympic Trail; the Breakfast 10 kilometres was held around the University of Warwick campus, which despite its name, is in the city of Coventry! The flat two lap course invariably produces fast times …. but not after doing 20 miles in a previous four days! At least the thought of the presentation cum BBQ and a final marathon time put some slight spring into the steps of the competitors.

(Anecdotes and facts taken from the ‘History of the Development of Athletics in Coventry’ … a never ending piece of research looking at the various influences on the 130 years of Coventry Godiva Harriers existence.)

***Note: because of difficulties with the part of the course that ran through Wormwood Scrubs and the fact that the stadium for the Games was not completed until a month after the ‘Olympic Course’ Trial, the distance is questioned by many statisticians. The scepticism seems to be justified when the times of all the competitors are examined, not just that of the winner. Further evidence is advanced by A.E.H Winter in his booklet "From The Legend To The Living" who confirms that ‘the Marathon trial race organised by the Polytechnic Harriers was indeed 22½  miles’. Winter was the ‘Poly’ marathon organiser for many years and bestowed upon me the dubious honour of being one of the few athletes to be disqualified from a national championships for cheating! 

Venue	Date	Distance	Winner	Time	Organiser?
Manchester	21 March	19 miles	Fred Lord	1:50:23	Salford Harriers
South London	28 March	20 miles	Fred Thompson	2:08:30.	Ranelagh Harriers
Liverpool	4 April	18 miles	William Clarke	1:46:08	Liverpool Harriers
South London	4 April	24 miles 670 yds.	E.R.Small	2:51:02	Blackheath Harriers
Derby	11 April	22 miles 1380 yds.	E.Eglington	2:37:40	?
Olympic Course***	25 April	25 miles***	Alex Duncan	2:15 :45	Polytechnic Harriers
Coventry	9 May	25 miles	Jack Price	2:37:13	Birchfield Harriers
Olympic Course	23 May	22 miles 1420 yds.	J.B.Powell	2:28:23	South London Harriers