Lots of red eye and this.....

Its difficult taking pictures in the dark and I couldn't get many of the runners wearing darker clothes tonight in the Blackrock Spring Handicap. Many of the photos I took caught runners with "red eye" and some of them were not too flattering. I wouldn't like to meet this guy on a really dark night!

Cycling club has new website

I've updated the links page to the new website for the Manx Viking Wheelers.

Have a look now at www.manxvikingwheelers.net

Race Walking in North of England

I was looking for something else on http://www.athleticsdata.com/ and I stumbled upon the result of the Northern 20km Championships (copied below). It is terribly sad to see (unless I am missing something and this was actually a veterans championship) that every single finisher was a veteran. I found the result from 1978 (when I competed before I started training regularly) and our good friend Mark Byrne (who finished second yesterday) would only have finished 37th out of the 42 that year. The 1978 result is above.

Results from today's NARWA Championship 20km race walk at Simister 1. Paul Evenett (Redcar RWC) 1h40.32 M402. Mark Byrne (Redcar RWC) 2h03.16 M453. Tony Bell (Lancashire WC) 2h05.15 M454. Joe Hardy (Lancashire WC) 2h06.13 M655. David Crompton (Lancashire WC) 2h07.28 M456. Stephen Sargent (Lancashire WC) 2h08.11 M607. David Jones (Redcar WC) 2h09.09 M608. Keith French (Yorkshire RWC) 2h14.46 M659. John Payn (Lancashire WC) 2h20.15 M7510. Stephen Walker (Lancashire WC) 2h20.29 M5011. Roy Gunnett (Lancashire WC) 2h20.52 M6012. Helen Starling (Redcar WC) 2h28.25 1st lady W45

Registration scheme

I'm not sure people in other clubs have received the same, but this week members of Manx Harriers received registration membership cards with a request to update an online record that not many people knew existed in the first place.

We've been paying a £5 a year registration fee but I remain convinced that the registration scheme has been lacking given the potential to do some much with technology. Here is a letter I had published in Athletics Weekly in 2005:


For several years I have followed the debate about a national registration scheme for athletes. I waited for someone to highlight the obvious benefits. Instead I am left to reflect on a massive missed opportunity to use modern technology for the benefit of the sport at its grassroots.

The scheme has been “sold” as a way of collecting data for the governing body and charging athletes accordingly! Any benefits for athletes and club officials are vague and long term.

UKA should be using its centralised resources to design a scheme which would directly benefit the athletes and officials. Is the following not obvious to all?

Every athlete would be required to input their personal details, events and interests onto an internet database. Details of all clubs would be available allowing a new athlete to make a reasoned choice. Club subscriptions would be collected by credit card (amounts would still be specified by the clubs) and each club would receive a monthly credit directly into their bank account for the subscriptions. The amount would be net of a UKA collection fee but at least they would be providing a valuable service to the clubs.

Gone would be the need for clubs to collect and bank cheques and cash and to produce membership lists. With suitable security and data protection, clubs would be able to extract up to date lists of members and defaulters. The time saved could be used to free up time for coaching, officiating or attracting new recruits to the sport.

The requirement for athletes to duplicate their personal information every time they enter an event would be removed – they would simply provide their reference number. Entry could be online or offline (registered events would be allowed to extract the data from the central database).

Authorised statisticians would have access to data to match performances with names on the database.

UKA would still get their data but as the athletes would input and maintain it, it would be much more accurate and up to data than an annual report from the clubs. The extra time freed up for club officials would provide the opportunity for more people to join the sport and improve their performances.

Such a membership scheme would also improve the two things that governing bodies are always accused on failing with - communication and democracy. UKA could communicate directly, via email, with the athletes and athletes would be able to vote directly on the issues affecting them.

I know that not everyone has access to the internet or has a credit card but all barriers to a scheme that would bring such enormous benefits to our sport could be worked on and removed. After all, which group of people in our society seem to use their credit cards, phones and gadgets most frequently but claim to have no money? The very ones we need to attract to our sport – young people!

The variety of the Isle of Man weather

I was pretty happy yesterday morning having completed a very long training session by 10 am in excellent weather conditions on Douglas Promenade. I thought that the wind speed increased a little towards the end but that fits in with a joke within our training group that the wind always gets worse (the reality usually is that you are less well able to deal with it as you tire).

As it was one of the last Saturdays until October that Marie and I will both be free from our cleaning duties at our two holiday properties, I suggested that we made the most of the good weather and she should walk to the top of Snaefell with me in the afternoon when I did my filming of the fell race. I did, however, suggest that she took a warm coat as even on a warm day it can be chilly up there.

I did not expect what we encountered. It was misty, the wind was so strong that we could hardly stand up and I don't know how the runners coped with it.

When I am editing the videos for YouTube, one of the decisions I have to make it whether to leave any of the background sound on when I add the music. Sometimes it can add something to the overall effect; sometimes it can be very repetitive to hear encouragement for the same athletes all the way through.

I had no choice yesterday as the unedited clip above shows. The sound was totally dominated by the wind which even hid the fact that I said "here comes Tom" when in fact it was Simon arriving first. You can also see one of my wobbles as I almost got blown over.

There was a great entry of 50 yesterday presumably influenced by the weather in Peel / Douglas / Ramsey / Port St Mary etc in the morning (everyone competed with each other to tell the other how splendid the weather had been in their part of the Island) rather than the weather forecast, which had predicted what there was.

Please forgive me for not filming everyone at the top of Snaefell - I had to get down to the warmer weather before I passed out! I was only able to get a few pictures on my SLR camera before that stopped working in the damp conditions and I was very relieved when it worked again later in the day.

Aren't we lucky

I'm 52 years old and have enjoyed so many things during that time.

Craig Lunt was less than half my age when, despite appearing to be a very fit and healthy young footballer, he passed away suddenly because of an undiagnosed heart defect.

The http://www.craigheartstrongfoundation.co.uk/ was set up in Craig's memory to try prevent further tragic loss of young lives and it already has done so. You can help one of his friends, Aaron Quinn (pictured above) to raise £5,000 for this project. He is running in the Flora London Marathon in just five weeks time. You can give your donation at any time but why not do it now before you forget.

NOW MEANS NOW! CLICK HERE

Its a couple of weeks since I promised Aaron to help with his sponsorship and 9 days since I took some of pictures of him at the National Sports Centre.

I'm sorry that it has taken me a while to get it done. Quite apart from the usual time pressures I find it very emotional to prepare features like the one I did tonight.

I didn't know Craig but I do know both his parents.

I met Keith during my first week at Ballakermeen in 1968 when I only knew one other boy among the 400 + boys at the north end of the school (the girls were kept apart in those days!). He was one of the only people to make me feel welcome to the big town! He could certainly beat me at cross country but like most boys he preferred football. He ran in the second ever London Marathon though in a time of 3.45.

Paula worked at the primary school which our boys attended and we marvel at what she has done with the charity.

I'm going to turn my attention to one or two other projects at the weekend.

Before I sign off, I'll make one more plea for you to sponsor Aaron. When I visited the National Sports Centre to meet with Aaron, there were people of all ages using the track, the roadway, the all weather pitch, the swimming pool and the other indoor facilities. Let's make sure that all our young people are around to enjoy all the different periods of a long and healthy life.

Help me find the best links for local events

One of the things that I believe strongly in (for a successful sport in the Isle of Man) is that people can easily find details of an event. Furthermore, we should always have this information available many months ahead. The quality of the information on club websites has improved dramatically in recent years but because there are five different clubs on the Isle of Man (and some events are also staged by the IOMAA) the information can sometimes be scattered around.

It is still a little frustrating to me to be told (when I have had the links published for months) that I am linked to the wrong page or the date is wrong.

It would be very helpful if a few people could audit my links and tell me whether they are to the best pages for information. are the dates correct? Do I correctly identify the events requiring advance entry etc? Have I got the correct name of the event (including the sponsor)?

Any help would be appreciated.

These are the links I currently have:


Manx fixtures
Date
Follow link for further details
Entry forms
21 March
Snaefell Fell Race
Not required
26 March
Blackrock Veterans Spring Handicap
Here
29 March
HSBC Securities Services Winter League Walks & 10km walking champs
Not required
5 April
Manx Harriers Open Track & Field Meeting
Not required
10 April
Easter Festival 10km Road Run
Here
11 April
Easter Festival Peel Hill Race
Here
11 April
Manx Mountain Marathon & Half Mountain Marathon
Here
12 April
Easter Festival Road Relay and Women's 5km Road Race
Here
17 April
HSBC Ramsey Commissioners Park Runs
Not required
19 April
5km Race Walk and Younger Age Group Championships
Not required
3 May
Döhle Isle of Man Track & Field Championships
Not yet available
3 May
Isle of Man Bank Peel to Douglas Run
Not required
8 May
Scott Physiotherapy Dave Philips Road Races
Not required
9 May
Manx Youth Games
Not available
10 May
Manx 20km Walk Championships
Not required
12 May
Carraghan Fell Race
Not required
15 May
HSBC Ramsey Commissioners Park Runs
Not required
21 May
Manx Harriers 5km Walk
Not required
24 May
Döhle Isle of Man Track & Field Championships
Not yet available
24 May
Mann Link Travel Northern 10 Miles
Not required
29 May
Scott Physiotherapy Dave Philips Road Races
Not required
3 June
10,000 metres track walk and run
Not required
17 June
Steve Jacobs Memorial 1 Mile Handicap
Not required
19 June
HSBC Ramsey Commissioners Park Runs
Not required
20 June
Clerical Medical Parish Walk
Here
30 June
Scott Physiotherapy Dave Philips Road Races
Not required
5 July
Glen Mona Fell Race
Not required
10 July
HSBC Ramsey Commissioners Park Runs
Not required
16 July
St Johns 10km Summer Walk
Not required
17 July
Scott Physiotherapy Dave Philips Road Races
Not required
24 July
HSBC Ramsey Commissioners Park Runs
Not required
28 July
North Barrule Fell Race
Not required
7 August
Scott Physiotherapy Dave Philips Road Races
Not required
9 August
Salclear Isle of Man Marathon and Half Marathon
Here
10 August
Peel Hill Race
Not required
12 August
Northern 10km
Not required
13 August
Anna Maria Cutillo Foxdale 6
Not required
14 August
Heritage Trail Run
Not required
23 August
Creg-ny-Baa Fell Race
Not required

All about communication

One of the great things about websites is that they are such an effective way of communicating with people. But it takes time to communicate with people and the more time you spend you communicating with people via websites, the less you have time to communicate with others.

Sometimes it is my immediate family who suffer.

Certainly my wider family find it hard to get hold of me and often it takes me a while to get back to phone messages. Sometimes my brothers and sister and their family give up trying to get hold of me! When I take the time though, it is me who is the most thorough in trying to ensure that one member of the family knows what another is doing.

So last night I set aside most of the evening to send a long email to all the family catching up with events over the past few weeks. So this time it was the people expecting communication via the website that had to wait.

I did clear the website decks at 6 am this morning and thought it was time to start promoting one of the series that is held through the summer. Rob Parslow had responded positively to my suggestion that it would be useful to have information on the Western AC website well in advance of the summer and so you can find out all about the Dave Phillips Road Races on their site. You can get a feeling for the event by watching the videos.

Communication is also the theme for most of the autism charities as that is what people on the autistic spectrum find so difficult. I had promised to go to something with Marie tonight where they were raising funds for two of the Manx autistic charities but I couldn't remember what (more communication problems!). It turned out to be a concert at Trinity Church organised by the Wednesday at 8 club with the Manx Concert Brass. I hadn't realised that this was one of the outlets for track runner Andrew Duncan. I had a good chat with him afterwards. What a good evening it was.

So I continue to have too many ideas for the time I have to turn them into communication. So if you are one of the people that I have said I'll do something for but not yet done it, I'm afraid that this is the only communication you'll get it until its done!

Hopefully tomorrow night will give me time to get a couple more jobs off the list.

Inter Counties Cross Country Videos

Another of those afternoons which was supposed to be just a quick update of the links and a couple of photos has seen me spend the last couple of hours online. Nice to get David's second video of the Inter Counties produced and uploaded.

20 mile statistics

In case you have missed it on the front page, I have just updated the statistics for the 20 mile race since 1982. Thanks to Marie Jackson for letting me have the 2009 results so quickly to avoid this job going into my "to do" list.


20 mile statistics since 1982
All finishers sorted by; year names fastest men fastest women

It never rains but it pours

It was hard to find a photo of the half marathon the other week (the only ones I have were from Chris Maddocks) but we made up for it by a massive collection from Adrian Cowin, Stan Hall had his online before the end of the race and Nigel Armstrong and Marie Jackson used my camera.

The one above was of the lap scorers and was taken by Nigel. Thanks to all the officials who did so much work for the event, before, during and afterwards - the work doesn't stop when we cross the finish line.

Video extra

You will probably hae seen by now that I published a film from the Inter Counties Cross Country last night. Its taken me a few days since Gail dropped a DVD of David's film from Nottingham. The good news, after spending a fair bit of time getting the music and the film matched up, was that the music seems to be permissable to YouTube. I wasn't sure from the news in the press whether it was just the music videos that were being blocked by YouTube or whether those that use soundtrack music from the recording labels that do still have agreements with YouTube. Thankfully it seems to be just the former.

David goes to a lot of trouble to get this film onto disk and onwards to me so thanks to him as usual for some good film.

There is more to come from the other races yet but to keep things moving I have included a few of David's clips from just after the finish of the men's race. I know that he wished he kept the camera on Keith for longer as he hadn't seen him so happy after a race before.

I'm only just over an hour away from starting 40 laps around the NSC so I had better stop now.

Gold Cup for my wife

I'm sure a few people will think that she deserves a Gold Cup for putting up with me for 25 years but that's not quite the story. Marie has gone with a friend for 2 days at the Cheltenham Festival including the Gold Cup Race tomorrow.

The first time that I ran in the London Marathon in 1995 Marie went with me but I blamed her for keeping me awake with her cough and she ended up trying to sleep in the bathroom. She missed me at Tower Bridge when nattering to other Manx people so she may as well have stayed at home. Which is what she has done every year since then. She has had a "girls weekend", usually at the Grand National, but a couple of times in Cheltenham whilst I have indulged in statistics and blisters in London.

Marie was up at 5 am to prepare for her journey today and I've had a long day and basically run out of steam without doing many of the things I planned to do tonight.

Good to see that Parish Walk entries are up to 377.

I've started to plug to Snaefell Fell race again - just a week on Saturday.

Looking at the stats for the 20 miles I realise that I am the last person to run under 2 hours for 20 miles at the NSC in 2001. The problem is that I was about four laps behind Tony Okell.

Those who know me well will often have heard me say that "you never know that you are at your peak until you have passed it" and whilst Tony had better days when he was younger I think that some of his performances in the early part of the century were under-rated.

I opened the wine bottle a little earlier than usual tonight so my sentiments are possibly over positive but I feel really good about the sport tonight. So many events to look forward to, after 11 weeks of consistent training I feel that I have recovered to at least 80% of where I was last Summer and I continue to be amazed for the encouragement offered to Robbie.

Whisky drinkers

This is what I put on the front page:


"I was almost willing to risk another tenner on this old photo but the risk is just too great with Robbie Lambie about! Can you name the five competitors in a race walking event, the year and the event? Note the whisky that was awarded as prizes. And yes Simon, it was always sunny in the old photos!"

The event was the Willaston Fayre 5 mile walk - there was also a run, initially held over a rural course around from Willaston School but latterly held over the same round the houses 8 lap course as the walk.

The walkers were (left to right) Mike Karran, Allan Callow, Elaine Worth, Kevin Worth and Murray Lambden.

I was going to tell a few stories about these events but I've failed to arouse the same level of interest as with the old black and white photos so I am not going to bother!

An uplifting day

Lifting in athletics is a term we hear too much about in race walking but I think we are all lifted on days like today when we celebrate one of our own gaining selection for one of the biggest athletics meetings of the year, the World Cross Country Championships.

Its not so long ago that a little boy was racing around Nobles Park in the same mud that we collected on our legs on Sunday. If Keith Gerrard can do it, why not others who were racing in the junior ranks on Sunday?

It doesn't happen overnight though. Well done to Keith and to his family and his coaches who have supported him through the years of hard work to make it.

I've updated the site to include the press release from uka and also added the report from David Griffiths on the inter counties.

Going back to the theme of how closely meshed the sport is, this coming Sunday is all about grass roots sport without the grass. Everyone who takes part in the Leinster Management 20 miles over 40 and a bit laps of the National Sports Centre roadway will get tons of support from the officials who often include many top athletes putting something back into those roots.

I added a small feature about the 20 miles first thing this morning, featuring Mike Garrett.

The more we see at the roots the more we will see at the the top of the pyramid in Jordan!

Turn your back on email at your peril

I was out last night at a dinner at which I attended as Marie's husband rather than in my own right. I was out of the house for about four hours and by the time I got back I had dozens of emails and several phone messages to add to my collection. I've only really attended to the commercial variety today. So if you have emailed me recently, I am not ignoring you but I have a backlog.

As one well known fell runner will know, I recently replied to an email that was over a year old. Some take research to respond to but I always do my best.

I was working on a future website feature after work tonight - I met the featured athlete at the NSC. But that too will have to wait as my mother-in-law deserved some attention for a while. Its not often you reach 85 years of age so well done Mollie. Of course, spending time with Robbie is always a good excuse to watch a certain football team.

David has kindly supplied me a DVD with footage of the inter counties but I will not get a chance to look at that until Thursday evening at the earliest.

I have work committments tomorrow, albeit they involve a nice meal.

So a quiet day on the website saw me post the cross country results at around midnight. Reformat them and add a picture at around 6.30 this morning, fend off a call from the BBC about Keith Gerrard, prepare for a forthcoming feature and read up about YouTube's latest withdrawl of music rights from their site.

I've been in touch with Marie Jackson and Adrian Cowin re the 20 miles and I'll add something more about that tomorrow. Adrian is going to be covering it in full.

That was the cross country season

The Inter Counties Cross Country Championships have been held in Nottingham for the past 11 years and I think Sky have covered them for most , if not all, of those years.

Certainly it has become a tradition for me (and lots of other Manx runners) to be calling out "come on Keith" at this time of year in the hope that Sky have developed some new interactive service which allows viewers to communicate with the competitors!

I remember spending hours in previous years trying to master the act of copying recorded TV onto my PC and then learning how to take a still photo from the video. This year I took a step further with a production of a video of the recorded highlights. Although the editing is not of professional standard, I think it gives you a good feeling for what was a terrific race and a great performance by Keith Gerrard. I'm going to take if offline in the next couple of days.

I also saw Kevin Loundes when I watched it live but missed him when I did the editing. I also saw David Griffiths with video camera in hand at the side of the track.

The theme of this post was to be that I wasn't going to do any further coverage of the cross country season on the site but I am already relenting and thinking I will have a look for Kevin and David on the film tonight to get a still photo extracted.

I read Chris Quine's blog about team selection with interest last week and his post race analysis will no doubt be well worth reading.

For the first time for at least four years I managed to run in all the Manx Gas races and the Lancashire Cross Country so I didn't really add to my photo collection this year. I returned to cross country on a regular basis in about 1991 (having run the odd race at school and a few when I was concentrating on race walking up to 1983) and I would claim to have run as many events as anyone during that period. In most years I ran all the races because I was not taking part in UK events.

I've found this season hard but have thoroughly enjoyed the competition in whatever part of the race I have found myself. On the face of it I have gone backwards since the opening race (also at Nobles Park) but, whereas at that time I had only run about 20 miles in 6 weeks through injury, this time I had run a very hard 20 miles on Friday afternoon alone.

One of the really pleasing aspects of the race yesterday was to see several new faces taking part.

It was disappointing to see relatively small fields though I go along with the views expressed in some other quarters that the race is an anticlimax after the excitement of the championships (and the double points).

It takes a lot of man hours to organise each event and I think the standard of organisation has got better than ever - I noticed more marshals than ever before. A particular thanks to Andy Fox who organised yesterday's event on behalf of Manx Harriers. All helpers deserve credit though on such a cold day.

Thanks to Gail Griffiths who emailed to suggest that she videoed some of the races, although apologies to her that I did not fully charge the battery. I must have given her at least 10 seconds of training with the camera and so there were a few bits I couldn't use. By the time I got through the second edit (to reduce the length to the same length of the music) I thought it came out fairly well though. Some runners get more coverage than others although that's not a bad thing - such matters average out.

I'm looking forward to seeing the results when David Griffiths gets back. Thanks to him and all the team who worked so hard to make the event a success. It can always be improved and I'm sure they will welcome all ideas.

That said, its pretty hard to get a traditional, hilly, muddy, wet and windy country setting in a park with a firm fast course in the sun. In other words, you'll never please everyone, me included.



I'm looking forward

Who knows where the time goes?

How can you have a favourite band for 35 years but never go to see them?

That was my story tonight until I finally saw Fairport Convention in Peel tonight.

So no website tonight and the emails are gathering pace again as soon as my back is turned.

Who Knows Where the Time Go, written by former member Sandy Denny, is a classic Fairport song by the way. I think I have only used two Fairport songs on my YouTube videos so far but you can expect a few more now.

Plenty of cameras; not enough photos

I set up an article about the Salclear Isle of Man Marathon last night although I've only just published it.

I was rather pleased with the photo that I used. I took it on Easter Saturday last year when I took four cameras with me to the Manx Mountain Marathon and climbed part of North Barrule. I had a problem with one of the video cameras (which I have since replaced) and missed a fantastic opportunity to get film of most of the runners climbing the mountain with Ramsey in the background. Only a little came out.

I'd not, at that time, developed the technique of using two cameras at a time, one in each hand but I got a few decent stills on my Nikon SLR. You can check these out here http://easterfestival.fotopic.net/c1478996.html

But I also took my HP 945 camera with me. It is the second of my three digital cameras and was purchased in 2004 mainly for its zoom facility. I have used it to good effect in events like the Ramsey Cross Country and the Peel to Douglas Walk for long distance shots and I took a few looking down from North Barrule on Easter Saturday which I had not previously used. I like to keep a few in reserve. I have another for the Park Race series.

There were loads of cameras around the National Sports Centre on Saturday too. I've not yet got my hands on a single shot and its probably getting a bit late to use many now in any event. I tried John Watterson at Isle of Man Newspapers but their man, Mike Proudfoot, had moved on by the start of the Half Marathon.

Does anyone have a good shot of the runners? I'm not sure if a video is going to materialise either.

30th time was the most emotional

I never beat Chris Maddocks in a walking race, but I beat him to the alter by more than 25 years! He marries Fi on 12 September. They are pictured above on Friday afternoon at one of my favourite spots on the Isle of Man - Gob y Deigan. The following afternoon he played a big part in making the day special for me.


Saturday was the 30th year in a row that I had been a part of what is now the Manx Harriers HSBC Securities Services Open Meeting (not the 29th as I first wrote). It was probably the most emotional.

I’ve seen the event grow from a walking only event where the best walker in Britain the previous year was invited to attend the Boundary Harriers dinner and also to take part in an invitation event with local walkers. Manx Airlines first sponsored it in 1983 and the following year there was an attempt on the World 40 mile record – as Dougie Corkill reminded me on Saturday, it was 25 years to the day since that memorable race.

I’ve seen several British walking records, the fastest ever half marathon run on the Isle of Man and more recently many fine performances by the Irish walkers.

I took part as a walker on four occasions and have now run in it thirteen times. I’ve even won a walk and a run, although my walking win was of a somewhat higher standard as sadly the standard of the run has fallen somewhat from its peak. It’s also sad to see how few British walkers made the trip here this year.

It is brilliantly organised each year by Bridget Kaneen and her team of helpers. It is equally pleasing to see the work that goes into planning the event over many months and the efforts of other (non competing athletes) athletes on the day to lend a hand to support their fellow athletes.

The event has been one of the major features on the http://www.manxathletics.com/ website since 2001 even though Paul Jackson took over prime responsibility for it in 2005 after he set up the http://www.manxharriers.com/ site that winter. For the past couple of years I have produced videos of the event to add to the stats and the photos but I had an advantage compared to this year – I wasn’t taking part!

So I had to curtail my coverage a little this year as I had entered the half marathon. Even so I was delighted to receive such a positive response from visitors to the site in Ireland.

Our younger son, Ben, came from university to run and improved his time by 7 minutes whilst I was happy with my time, albeit it was the slowest time that I have run on the course.

10% of the entries in the half marathon were from our family and it was our elder son Robbie who caused the emotion. Robbie’s life has brought many challenges but running is a great outlet for him. This was his first half marathon and breaking 2 hours was his target. He went much too fast early on and suffered accordingly in the later stages. I was very worried about his condition and questioned my own judgment and responsibility for encouraging him to take part. I thought that he was about to collapse and suggested he stopped.

I’ve written a lot about Chris Maddocks on this site in recent weeks but it was this five times Olympic Walker who gave Robbie the most encouragement during his final laps, particularly when he was reduced to walking. With 300 metres to go Chris shouted to me that Robbie was running again and I called out to Robbie the number of seconds left to break 2 hours. With the fastest finish of any of the runners he beat his target by five seconds.

There is always the risk of overdoing things in sport. I had never gone so quickly from the fear that we had allowed Robbie to overdo it to the joy of seeing an ambition achieved. I still don’t think that there is any other sport where people appreciate each other’s performances as they do in athletics.

I’m hoping that there will be additional contributions towards the coverage of the event yet but it would be impossible for me to convey the emotion that it brought to me this year.