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| Only mad dogs and English runners go out in the midday snow . . . |
You expect
transgressions in track sprints, when every fraction of a second is vital, but to
get a false start in a 12-kilometre cross-country was a real collector’s item.
BBC
commentator Steve Cram had a good old chortle about it, and pondered whether it
had ever happened before. His co-commentator Paula Radcliffe had the answer -
yes it has. She recalled a race where the runners had covered at least 200
yards of grass before officials managed to call a halt.
Calling
them back is the hard part. Poland must have some brave athletics officials. You’d never attempt a recall at the English championships.
The huge annual assembly at what we Anglos fondly call ‘The National’
traditionally fans out wide at the start, and the stampede always resembles a
Zulu uprising. It would need more than a handful of hi-vis vests to send that
lot back where they came from.
Seeing what
happened on Sunday’s start-line at Bydgoszcz (I can spell it, but I can’t
pronounce it) got me thinking about how cross-country always throws up funny
stories and good anecdotes in a way that road or track-racing rarely does. Here’s a few that spring to mind . . . .
*A Tiptree Road Runners clubmate of
mine turned up one Sunday keen and hungry at one of the longest and muddiest of
Essex events. All was fine until he discovered he’d forgotten his running
footwear. Unwilling to let the side down over such a ‘minor’ issue, our hero pinned
on his number, proceeded to the start-line and ran the whole thing in ordinary
leather day shoes!
*Early in his running career, GB
international Peter Elliott ended one cross-country race in the back seat of a
police car. He’d been misdirected by a well-meaning marshal and was picked up
by traffic cops who spotted him running determinedly along the hard shoulder of
the M1!
*In his younger days, the great
Dave Bedford was so confident and talented (some would say arrogant!) he was
able to win both junior and senior titles at the Southern XC Champs on the same
day. But instead of widespread acclaim for this feat, all he got was an angry letter
from a fellow runner’s mum, haranguing him for being a bloody show-off!
*The very first organised cross-country
championship – staged here in Essex of course – took place in Epping Forest in
1876, but ended in fiasco. No
tape or yellow arrows in those days, just a bloke scattering a paper trail. On
this occasion he managed to run out of paper long before the end. Fearful of
the consequences, he promptly scarpered from the scene with his empty bag. The entire
pack of following runners were left stranded and freezing in the forest for
hours with no idea where to go. Officials eventually located them and administered
brandy (some was rubbed on muscles, some was poured down throats).
*After forgetting to bring his
shorts, Harrow runner Chris Finill once had to race in exceptionally muddy conditions
in totally unsuitable tracksuit bottoms. It led to a poor performance and Chris
lost his temper at the finish-line when a youngster shouted “Go grandad” in his
direction. He was just about to give the boy a clip round the ear when an
elderly runner slipped ahead of him and gave the boy a hug. It was the boy’s grandfather.
*Frank Tickner (Wells City) may
have won the re-scheduled Southern champs on Parliament Hill Fields last month,
but he didn’t get much acclaim. Spectators seemed far more interested in the
small stray dog which joined the runners for a complete lap of this historic
and incredibly muddy course, returning bedraggled but triumphant to loud
cheers, only to be collared and whisked away by the Old Bill. Onlookers wondered if the pacy pooch was a
member of the Barking club - or maybe Thames Hare and Hounds?
*When researching my book about old-time
running hero Alf Shrubb, I came across many a cross-country calamity back in Edwardian
days. Didn’t seem to do little Alf any harm though. In fact he got quite
nostalgic and poetic when recalling those days: “A cold wind smote our thinly-clad
bodies like a whip,” he said of one race. Not the sort of thing you hear from
the mouth of your average club runner these days, I'd suggest? Alf remembered one
7-mile cross-country from South Croydon on a wintry weekend when thick fog descended
mid-race, leading to some runners being lost out on the heath until 9pm, many
hours after darkness fell!
* Hannah McQuarrie, a runner with the
wonderfully-named Mornington Chasers club, is a relative newcomer to our sport.
Her descriptions of the obscure charms of cross-country are among the best I’ve
heard in ages. She reckons it’s a sport that gives us all the chance to give
adulthood the middle finger and run through muddy fields with childish glee! She
also suggests road-running is the Ken doll of the running world (smooth, flawlessly
turned out, well organised, commercial), while cross-country is the drunken
uncle (rough round the edges, scruffy, takes you by surprise, and prone to
stumbles and falls).
* Rob
Hadgraft’s five published books on running (plus 11 others on football) are now
also available as e-books for Kindle at just £4.99 each. Use this link:
Rob Hadgraft's
running books on Amazon or,
alternatively: www.robhadgraft.com
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