Fifty-five not out by Nick

My return to running continues slowly.  Yesterday I managed three miles around the village and today about four miles around Hindhead Common.  I have developed a new technique to try and prevent any old injuries resurfacing - I call it "running really really slowly!"  I might let myself have a day off tomorrow though, to let the legs recover slightly.  Besides I've got a busy day tomorrow, so a gentle walk home will probably be enough for me.

I thought I would use today's blog to take the opportunity to wish Mike McLeod a happy sixtieth birthday!  Mike has rather faded into the history of distance running and this is a pity because he was one of the best British distance runners ever.  At his peak he was one of the best runners in the world.  Mike did his running at a time when elite athletes still worked 9 to 5 jobs and did their training in their spare time.  When top athletes belonged to their local club (Mike stuck with his local club Elswick Harriers, rather than joining its' bigger and more succesful neighbour, Gateshead)   When athletes ran wearing their club vests, rather than sponsored kit.  When distance runners saw out the winter in this country, rather than heading off to a training camp in South Africa.  When runners turned out regularly in road and cross country races, often competing for their club.

Mike was a pretty succesful competitor in cross country.  He won the National cross country title in an era when all the top distance runners competed.  He was a frequent winner of those televised cross country races I remember from the late seventies and early eighties.

He was outstandingly succesful in road races, winning many of the major road races in the North east and beyond.  He won the traditional New Year Morpeth to Newcastle race several times.  He won the Saltwell road race an astonishing seventeen times in succesion!  He was the winner of the first two years of the Great North Run and was good enough to finish second as late as 1989.  I remember him running the Barrow 10 miles road race in 45:44, which is faster than the currently accepted British record.

On the track his times ranged from 3:56 for the mile up to 27:39 for the 10,000.  He had a particularly swift finishing kick and I can remember him winning the Golden 10,000 metres a couple of times (whatever happened to that race?)  His greatest success came in winning a medal over 10,000 in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.  Mike finished third behind Alberto Cova of Italy and Juha Vaatainen of Finland and received the bronze.  Subsequently Vaatainen failed a drug test - he had been taking steroids in the build up but thought he had given himself enough time for the drugs to clear his system.  Unfortunately he had also been using blood doping and there were traces of the drugs in the reinjected blood.  Mike was upgraded to silver.  Much later Alberto Cova admitted he had also used blood doping, for which there wasn't a test in 1984.  Strictly speaking Mike ought to have received the gold, but he had to be satisfied with a moral victory.

I'm not aware of Mike competing as a veteran but his son Ryan continues the family tradition, competing at a high level.

I was looking for some YouTube clips and I couldn't find many but I will offer you this one.  It's the UK champs of 1978.  This race was significant in that it was the first time Brendan Foster was beaten over 5,000 metres by another Briton.  Just a reminder of the age when Britain had some of the best distance runners in the world!