Tuesdays and Fridays we ran with the roadrunners, anywhere between 8 - 10 miles. The pace was a little easier.
Thursdays we ran with the striders,on the road again, sometimes cross country in the winter.
Saturdays I ran on my own, just the once as it was a rest day really, but I just loved running so much.
Sundays,if we weren't racing, we were on our own. There would be myself, Brad, Kev, Carl, Neil, Carty, and Bill. Bill was always there and never missed. We'd run anywhere between 15 and 33 miles,depending upon the time of year, and the races we had lined up.We 'd meet every Sunday at 9am at the park gates. No one was ever late.
70 mile weeks were pretty normal, and if you ran anything less, you were a wimp!
For years we all ran and socialised together. Come rain or shine we all turned out every Sunday morning for the long run. It was a laugh really, we joked, took the mickey out of each other, we'd speed up and push the pace or slow down and run at the back of the pack.We were like a family, or a tribe, and our war paint was sweat and sometimes blood.
We'd enter road races and would finish amongst the front runners, sometimes taking the team prizes, usually making the pace. We raced at home and abroad and once, haven't blasted all the other teams out of the water at the Benidorm marathon I ended up getting arrested and locked up overnight.To this day I still don't know what I’d done to get arrested.
Towards the end of the 80s Bill who had always been a keen cyclist was picked to represent GB in a duathlon and began to concerntrate more and more on perfecting his cycling technique.
Later, Brad who was a marine engineer moved to Aberdeen to work on the oil pipelines. Instead of running with us every Sunday he would make it only 5 or 6 times a year. When he was home he would just turn up. There were no mobile phones and no need to ring anybody or make any arrangements,he knew where we'd be. Over the next year Neil stopped turning up altogether, he'd had three children by the time he was 21 and fatherhood and parent responsibilities eventually took priority over running. A few years later Brad moved out to Perth in Western Australia, although to his credit he did turn up once, about 18 months later.That was the last time I saw him.
That still left myself, Kev, Carl and Carty and new people like Aussie Gary, Morph (I never knew his real name) came and went over the next few years or so. Despite our dwindling numbers good days were still in front of us and we ran faster than ever, most years we were setting personal bests and attracting the attention of the running media. Kev and me were now running for Reebok Racing Club and Carl (who bore a striking resemblance to Sgt Cryer in The Bill) had turned 40 and was very prolific in the UK veterans running scene. And still it was such fun, we just never took this stuff too seriously which would really annoy some of the athletic club coaches we'd worked with over the years. We would be out drinking and clubbing until 2am, but still run 20 miles the next morning.
In 1991 I took a holiday to the US with my girlfriend and on the spur of the moment entered a 10k race that was advertised at the beach we were visiting. A quick dash to a local sports shop and I bought a pair of Nike Air Zoom racing shoes. I only entered the race as a bit of fun and to show off to my girlfriend. I didn't take it too seriously and was wearing beach shorts, until we hit the 9k mark when I thought of the boys back home and I went to the front of the group and pushed it as hard as I could. I took the title of Southern Californian 10k road race champion. It was a real fluke but I ended up with my picture of the front cover of the US version of Runners World. At the time the magazine wasn't published in the UK and my short lived fame went almost unnoticed in the UK.
Carl succumbed to arthritis and Carty’s wife became ill and we were reduced to the magnificent two, just me and Kev. We still put in the big miles and sometimes Bill would turn out but those occasions were few and far between. One year me and Kev were featured a lot during the TV coverage of the London marathon which boosted our Sunday numbers again and we found ourselves with another tribe, another band of runners. But once again people came in and out and still it remained just the two of us. We'd still turn up and run with the athletic club and the road runners and the striders, but even their members changed and numbers dwindled. The running boom had been and gone, famed running guru Jim Fixx had died, Coe & Ovett were long since past and apart from the London Marathon there was very little coverage on any athletics on the television. One year Reebok didn't renew our sponsorship.
For us, nothing really changed. We'd still meet on Sunday mornings although we were more likely to run 15 miles rather than 30. We still had a laugh and we always raced as hard as we could but over time things seemed different and some of the enthusiasm was missing. That was the beginning of the end and something inside us had changed and we both started to miss the odd Sunday here and there to begin with, and then we might miss a few more and within a couple of months we'd stopped completely. For more than 10 years we'd given it everything we had and now it was time to get on with the rest of our lives.
Almost 25 years on and I am back, running on the same roads, occasionally I make it down to the park gates at 9am on a Sunday morning. I tend to linger for a few minutes or so, just incase anyone else turns up. I guess I have always been the eternal optimist. They don't turn up of course, but it doesn't matter really. As I am warming up I can still hear the laughter that our friendship once generated and I can still see "Sgt Cryer" doing his stretches and groaning. I sometimes wonder whether Brad has ever turned up there once or twice over the years.
One day in the future I am absolutely positive that Kev will turn up, and things will pretty much be as they have always been.
In the meantime I'll continue to run for all of us,because you see, that is what I do. My name is Chris and I'm a runner.
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