The Hobble, The Boggle and an Elf or Two

At the Hylands Hobble all you get is pain and a pint!
Craig Dawson (4th) is planning to use his big red blister as
a rear tail-light when training at night.

THE running scene around these parts is definitely getting weirder.

This morning I received an e-mail which urged me to grab my off-road shoes and get myself down to a remote spot in Essex called Chigborough Farm next month.  

Apparently they want me there because of the following: “Naughty elves have hidden some of Santa’s sacks and only you can help to find the missing presents and return them to Santa in time for the big day.”

I’m not sure why, but it struck me fairly quickly that this event was probably not one of those deadly serious, stringently-regulated fixtures in the Run Britain Grand Prix series.

Your Clapped-Out Runner would be delighted to experience something new after 30 years in the sport, but I must admit I never expected that ‘naughty elves’ would be playing a part in my running career.

It turns out the hunt for the stolen goods is actually being cunningly disguised as a six-mile trail race open to all. Presumably government cuts have hit Essex Police hard and they’ve come up with this novel way of recruiting voluntary help as they go about their business in the Maldon area. As everyone knows, runners can be relied upon to trudge for hours across the countryside, whatever the weather, for long distances. Police officers don’t generally like doing that sort of thing, so they’ve called in us runners. A clever plan.

Apparently we’ll be given written instructions and sent out on Sunday morning, December 23, across an area that includes Chigborough Lakes, a 46-acre nature reserve north of the Blackwater Estuary.  A number of large but shallow lakes could pose tricky navigational issues here, especially if we get distracted by the otters or smew that sometimes visit (smew is a splendid word, don’t you agree?).

The organiser-in-chief of the whole affair, Dave Game of Mid-Essex Casuals, is naturally not revealing the exact route we will be taking. Like one or two other local race directors, he loves to spring surprises and the details are no doubt stashed away in the vaults of a bank in Witham, under armed guard.

So without the full facts available, we can only speculate where we might have to run in pursuit of those allegedly criminal elves. Maybe we’ll be guided across the causeway to nearby Northey Island?  Springfield Striders' race organiser Kevin Wright has recently condemned us to many and varied ‘water hazards’ - but those will seem like child’s play if we’re expected to reach Northey Island when the tide is in.

History tells us that 1,000 years ago a band of Viking raiders seized control of Northey. When the local hero Earl Byrhtnoth came along and told them to bugger off, even he was delayed by the tide. He was soon wiped out by a poisoned spear, so maybe he shouldn’t have hung around like he did.  His fate should serve as a lesson to those of us who will be running in this area next month. Just remember to keep moving.

The area has a fascinating history, and the arrival of colourfully-clad runners next month is merely the latest of many unexpected developments in this quiet part of secret Essex.  For example, a famous bloke by the name of Norman Angell turned up in the 1920s, flashed his cash and was able to buy Northey Island, lock, stock and barrel!

He soon designed and built a towered house and its surrounding turreted walls that survives to this day. You can even stay there on holiday if you can afford to. Politician and author Norman doesn’t seem to have encountered too many planning problems with the council back in the 1920s, but when you are on the verge of a knighthood and the Nobel Peace prize, you can probably take a few liberties if you need to. Norman was only five foot tall, incidentally, so maybe this business about elves is something to do with him?

I suspect the trail race will be well attended by members of my club Tiptree Road Runners, particularly as it’s been chosen to launch our brand new internal trail competition. This is being masterminded by our newly-crowned ‘Club Person of the Year’ Wendy Smalley.

In highly optimistic fashion, Wendy is demanding that we carefully tailor our personal fixture lists so that we compete in at least 10 out of a series of 12 carefully-selected events over the next nine months or so. If we bow to her pressure and comply, she has promised to implement a cunning system of point-scoring that will eventually see one of us emerge as a trophy winner.

It is rumoured that even getting spectacularly lost will not harm our chances, for there could be extra points for episodes of high comedy that may accidentally occur. Wendy has yet to confirm whether the champion will be dubbed Trailer of the Year, Champion Navigator of the Year, or maybe even Elf Chaser of the Year?

Glancing through the weekend’s results and at the 2013 fixtures, I must come back to my assertion that running is getting a bit weird these days.  

Yesterday (Sunday), the good citizens of the Birthplace of Radio were scared to death by dozens of passing mudded, bloodied figures taking part in the ‘Hylands Hobble’. The race was so tough that even the winner took an hour-and-a-half, while the tailenders are probably still out on the edge of Chelmsford right now.

Despite these scenes of carnage,  I understand that a few of my clubmates are now planning to have a crack at what is known as the ‘Braintree Boggle’ in February – another eccentric off-road race, but this one more than twice as long as the ‘Hylands Hobble’!  Good grief.

* Check out Rob Hadgraft’s running books (published by Desert Island Books) at www.robhadgraft.com

This, folks, is a smew. But, of course, you knew that already.

Squelching on a Sunday

It can get a bit windy in Harwich . . . .  

THE havoc wreaked 3,500 miles away by Hurricane Sandy led to Sunday’s New York Marathon being cancelled - but here in East Anglia a spot of nasty weather failed to stop our Sunday morning fun-on-the-run.

Emerging from my front door at some unearthly hour, I observed violent skies that looked unrelenting – and barely 200 metres from my doorstep our local park was flooded again. With the fate of the NYC Marathon having been all over the TV news, I began to wonder if the ‘health and safety’ option might kick in over here.  But thankfully the Harwich Runners club is made of stern stuff.  It takes more than driving rain, bitterly cold winds and ankle-deep mud to prevent their 53-12 N.Essex Cross-Country League fixture taking place.   

Fast forward two hours and - huddled together on bleak, exposed farmland just outside the port of Harwich - more than 200 hardy locals pulled on studded cross-country shoes, cast their eyes upwards and laughed defiantly in the face of the weather gods.

However inhospitable the venue, the course and the weather, the hardest part of cross-country can sometimes be getting yourself to the start-line, not the actual completion of the race. With this in mind, I tip my (metaphorical) hat to those who were making their cross-country debuts at Harwich on Sunday.  If you come back for more after that lot, you’ve definitely passed initiation with flying colours and can consider yourself promoted to the ranks of ‘real runners’!

It was the first time the weather turned against organisers of this annual event, so credit to them for not being cowed into submission. They’d already warned us beforehand that waterlogged fields would severely restrict parking and create a mighty long walk to the start, and that changing and pre-race preparation would be in a draughty barn definitely not designed to accommodate 200-plus jostling runners.  It was a miracle anyone turned up at all really!

Your Clapped-Out Runner arrived relatively early to avoid the booby-prize parking spots, and was rewarded with a farmyard position amid rusty, redundant machinery which lurked menacingly as far as the eye could see. The rain slanted down incessantly as, on the far grey horizon, little knots of hunched runners and their sportsbags trekked across exposed fields towards the start. Welcome to the sharp end of GB athletics. No hospitality marquee and plush VIP start-area here.

Friend and foe alike, representing the 13 competing clubs, gathered inside the barn HQ, tripping over each other as they fretted and experimented with clothing combinations aimed at defying the cold and rain. Gloves, hats, base-layer tops, long socks, neckerchiefs and more flew through the air as people kept busy, perhaps to postpone that awful moment when they finally had to return outdoors.

The run itself was set off with a minimum of ceremony, but a maximum of splashing and squealing noises. But the eight squelchy kilometres proved the ‘easy’ bit. When it comes to bad conditions it’s the waiting around for the start, and the recovery period afterwards that kills you, not the activity itself.

Harwich organiser-in-chief Peter G admitted he’d always feared that one day it would rain on their parade and highlight the exposed location and shortage of shelter.  But a creditable tally of 146 men, 73 women, plus juniors, toughed it out, and equally impressive were the marshals who manned their posts with great dedication.

The inquests after a run like this can be amusing. People mull over in meticulous detail how they’d worn too much, too little or the wrong type of clothing; had taken the wrong route past the giant puddles; had eaten the wrong things pre-race; had been tripped, cut-up and elbowed. This moaning and groaning is evidently all a front, for deep down many are glowing with self-congratulation at not only surviving the ordeal, but doing better than expected.

My Tiptree teammate Craig had a blinder - 31st on his cross-country debut - as did Tina, whose 32nd place in the women’s race was offset by the loss of feeling she reported in all ten of her toes. Wendy told us her controversial decision to run in waterproof jacket and woolly hat was vindicated by being the only finisher not to suffer exposure. Chairman Malcolm, not fully fit, watched the carnage from the sidelines, but instead of being pleased to avoid the misery, he announced a plan to return next week at Colchester’s Hilly Fields (another Shangri-La where the sun always shines and it’s never cold or wet!). 

The race may have looked like hell-on-legs, but running’s a strange game and most survivors seemed somewhat exhilarated by the end. Recovering in the melee next to my lot were Ipswich JAFFA runners, including Kelly, who glugged down “The best cup of tea I've ever, ever had in my whole life”.  Nearby, the experienced Gavin confirmed it had been one of the muddiest and wettest races he’d ever done. The appropriately-named Marina was quick to agree.

And there was Andrew, who reckoned the reason he’d forgotten to bring a towel was because he hadn’t run cross-country since 1973. Marcus was so traumatised by it all he managed to lose his car keys, while clubmate Esther left her shoes behind. Debutant Hannah announced she was so cold her hands had stopped working, while JAFFA old-stager Clive reckoned in his day cross-country had always been like this (presumably meaning the conditions rather than malfunctioning hands).

Typifying the spirit of the day was Colchester Harriers’ Debbie Cattermole, who slipped and took a spectacularly heavy fall but bravely carried on, eventually finishing just outside her team’s scorers in seventh spot.   

Poor old organiser Peter G perhaps had it worst of all, though. His scoresheets got so soaked it delayed publication of the full results. But that would prove the least of his troubles.  As people trekked homewards, he told his fellow-helpers to depart and get dry as he would do the last bit of clearing up himself. Unfortunately this meant nobody was around to assist when his car got firmly stuck in the mud. Having to then call colleagues back from their firesides was, he said sarcastically, “The perfect end to the perfect day!”

At precisely 2054 hours on Sunday (nearly ten hours after the race finished) Peter solemnly declared he was about to form a close alliance with a bottle of wine. He’s not been seen since.

Since Sunday I’ve heard rumours about a handful of local runners who thought they could avoid the misery at Harwich by taking the ‘safer’ option of a road race elsewhere in the region. I have to report that their cunning plan misfired. Two of them selected the Billericay 10k, but while sheltering in their car from the driving rain, managed to miss the start completely. Once they finally gave chase to the rest of the pack, they were confronted by oceans of ankle-deep floodwater.  

Meanwhile Ipswichian runner Mon headed up to the Bungay 20k. For his troubles he developed a strange condition he described thus: “My arms began flinching of their own accord”. As far as running ailments go, that's definitely a new one on me . . . .  

* Check out Rob Hadgraft's 16 sports history books (five on running), published by Desert Island Books, at:  www.robhadgraft.com

  

Woods or fields? Dark or light? Morning or evening?

Running through woods feels faster than open fields. Honestly.

WHY does it feel faster to run through woods than across an open field? And why can running after dark feel quicker than in the day time? 

These are questions forming in many a UK runner’s exhausted brain now the clocks have gone back and it’s time to train after dark, and race in cross-country settings.

Here in Essex there’s a triathlete called David Parry who reckons he has the answers to these questions. It’s all to do with something known as ‘optic flow’, apparently. Parry has been heading research on this at University of Essex’s Human Performance Unit and his findings have been widely published this autumn.

“Running in an environment where most visual reference points you can see are close by, you experience a greater sensation of speed than in an environment where your reference points are far away,” he says. “Running, therefore, on an open trail with expansive views across the landscape, and relatively few objects close by, is likely to lead to lower sensations of speed than running in a forest with many trees nearby.”

Okay. So for me and colleagues in the 53-12 N.Essex Cross-Country League I think this means our annual Halstead race - much of it through woods - is going to feel a whole lot quicker than the one next weekend across open fields at Harwich – even if we trudge through the mud at exactly the same pace at both.   

Another finding to emerge from Essex Uni was that running or cycling at night feels very different to performing the same levels of speed and effort during daylight:

“In the dark, objects further away aren’t visible and you only have close-by objects to use as reference, so you get a greater sense of speed compared to running during the day,” says David Parry.

Personally, I’m not sure if all this is good news or bad. In the past I’ve felt quite pleased with myself for skimming through woodlands at what felt like high speed. Careering through the trees, springy pine needles underfoot, and all that jazz . . . but now I fear it was only the ‘optic flow’ making me think I was going faster all along.

And as for the running at night theory? Well I always thought I was going faster after dark because I’m naturally an ‘owl’ rather than a ‘lark’. Which is to say I run better in the evenings than early mornings as the adrenaline is flowing, I’m fully awake, and my circadian rhythms are in a better place. But maybe it was just that optic flow business playing its tricks again?

Certainly my ability, or otherwise, to run early in the day was given a stern test last weekend.  After a late Friday night in London, I decided it was high time I sampled one of the many Parkrun 5ks staged at breakfast time the following morning.  Since becoming a Clapped-Out Runner, early morning racing was one of several habits I’d managed to quit. But, what the hell . . .

Strangely, it went well. And if you are all sitty comfty-bold two-square on your botty (as Stanley Unwin used to say), I’ll tell you about it:

Here at the Birthplace of Radio, it was the crack of dawn when my weary carcass dragged itself clear of the bedroom zone. Luckily a modicum of pre-race adrenaline had surprisingly mustered itself, because I awoke before my wristwatch alarm sounded (alarm clocks have been banned by Mrs H, who claims they tick too loudly through the night).  So it was a miracle I was even up and awake, let alone ready to do a Parkrun.

Parkrun is a worldwide project that has somehow pulled off the clever trick of persuading millions across the globe to go running early every Saturday instead of grumpily pulling the duvet over their heads. Events now take place weekly at 149 different UK locations, with a total of 12,500 stagings so far.

People like me who live in the Birthplace of Radio have only recently enjoyed the privilege of having a Parkrun reasonably nearby, with Ipswich and Southend-on-Sea now added to the list. Yes, the roistering resort of ‘Sarfend’, the one that gave the world the Kursaal Ballroom, TOTS nightclub, the world’s longest pleasure pier and Dame Helen Mirren. Among other things.    

The temperature was just above freezing as I made for the race venue at the eastern end of the sprawling Southend conurbation, tucked between Thorpe Bay and Shoeburyness. Here in Gunners Park you can look over the sea wall and see where the Luftwaffe once deposited one of their nasty magnetic bombs. Shoeburyness is also mentioned in H.G.Wells' scary War of the Worlds, but these things should not put you off.  This is a fine setting to stretch the legs on a Saturday.

There was one hell of a ‘wind chill factor’ to take into account, but the bright sun compensated and the simplicity of the event was welcome. There are no entry fees, no numbers, you just assemble for the start at 9 where a friendly chap thanks you for being a “first-timer” and warns you of puddles and other hazards before setting the shivering pack on its way.  Three-and-a-tiny-bit laps later you dip over the finish line, present your personal barcode to a man with a zapper, then head to the nearby Harvester where bacon sarnies and coffee await. Within an hour or two your result, position, age-graded ranking and much more can be scrutinized via whatever personal communications device you currently carry.

Issues of optic flow, circadian rhythms and bone-chilling wind notwithstanding, I’ll be back for more soon. Not every single Saturday morning, you understand, but very soon.

* Check out Rob Hadgraft’s 16 titles published by Desert Island Books at www.robhadgraft.com

Race in moderation? Which county's that in then?

* Excuse me, could you direct me to the A12? 
I've got another race in a minute.......

FUNNY how we change with age. If a fellow runner tells me today that he or she did two hard races in one weekend, I tend to smile sympathetically and quietly wonder if they’ve gone slightly round the bend.

Yet a few years ago I would often do exactly the same thing. Indeed on more than one occasion I recall actually completing two tough races in a single morning.  What the hell was I thinking?

This week I was reminded of those crazy days. It came about because I was filling a few spare moments by dredging out old race results - for the purpose of passing them on to former club colleague Clive Sparkes, who is bringing the Ipswich JAFFA website stats archive up to date. I had six good years running with JAFFA (1985-1991) during which all my lifetime PBs were achieved. And it seems to me like a good thing all that sweat, toil and mileage of yesteryear should go on the public record somewhere! 

The trouble is, when you head towards being a Clapped-Out Runner, leafing through your past achievements tends to be a traumatic experience. The rate and degree to which you have slowed down since passing your peak can be frightening. If you are the sensitive type, who is easily demoralised, I wouldn’t recommend this pastime. To say I looked at those cuttings and felt a little wistful would be an understatement. I was overflowing with wist, in fact.

Among the dust and cobwebs in my cuttings box was one local paper story which reminded me of a certain Saturday morning in the summer of 1987. Despite having spent the previous two nights on the razzle in London, added to long subbing shifts at the local paper, I rose from my bed at the crack of dawn to head for Chantry Park in Ipswich. A six-mile race organised by the Sri Chinmoy AC involved six identical laps, mainly over parkland. 

After coming in third and clocking a time of 35 mins 46 seconds (it takes me longer to do five miles nowadays, let alone six!) it was then a case of jumping straight into the car to speed down the A12 for a second race. Here I managed to win the Capel St.Mary fun run (4.4 of your British miles), again averaging less than six-minute miling.

Did I really have that much energy back then? There wasn’t even the excuse that in either race I was there to make up the numbers in a club team. No, it seems I entered those two races in one morning purely because they were there. You might think that my spouse would have had a quiet word and told me not to be so daft?  A bit of advice about putting quality above quantity, or something of that sort?

Well, no, actually. In fact, the first Mrs.H did exactly the same thing and ran in both events herself.  And - spooky coincidence - she also came third and first, in the women’s races.  If we had been getting appearance money, you could have understood it, but there were no brown envelopes, just little medals on a red ribbon.

Of course, I wasn’t the worst offender back then by any means. The 1980s was the decade in which a major ‘citizen running boom’ swept across the UK from America, and the sport suddenly became the chosen pursuit of nutters everywhere.

Take Mervyn Kesselring of Bungay Black Dog RC, for example. That same summer 25 years ago he managed to complete four races in a period of 36 hours.  And each was on a different surface!  Merv the Swerve raced on grass in Ipswich, on a cinder track in Norwich, on roads in Wroxham and on a tartan track back in Ipswich. With barely time for a meal in between. What a guy.      

Colchester runner Paul Newell (official club nickname ‘Nutty’ by the way), also spent inordinately large chunks of 1987 running along various roadsides. Perhaps years of supporting Colchester United had affected his judgement, but Paul embarked on what was described as  “a record-breaking mission” to Athens, talking about completing five full marathons in six weeks. He had warmed up for this little jaunt by running the South Downs Way, a little matter of 80 miles.

Maybe it was something in the air back in 1987, but even the region’s best runners seemed to get caught up in the mileage-mania. Paul Turner of Ipswich JAFFA, for reasons best known to himself, put his legs on the line by entering three races in two days - just a week after setting a superb personal best of 2:41 at the London Marathon. 

But Paul was a shrewd runner, well known for his sensible judgement (as well as for his loud and lengthy conversation in the showers), and his gala weekend of racing certainly seemed to do him no lasting harm. In fact, he chalked up a second, a first and a sixth place in that busy weekend. Nowadays he’s the club's head coach, and presumably doesn’t recommend such behaviour to his young proteges?!

* Check out Rob Hadgraft’s published books on running history, at www.robhadgraft.com

    

You Don't Need to be Quick to Catch a Cold!

HALLELUJAH! At last I’ve discovered some good news about getting older.  Apparently as we progress through our 50s and beyond we tend to catch fewer colds!

There’s nothing worse for a Clapped-Out Runner than having to miss a race or a key training session for something as piffling as a little head cold. Of course we know to be circumspect when it comes to plantar fasciitis or myositis ossificans. But a pesky upper respiratory tract infection? Get out of here.

The winter running season officially arrived this week as far as I am concerned (cross-country in Chelmsford’s Hylands Park), and one of my main targets is to get through the next six months without catching a cold or any other winter virus.

My Old Grey Training Log was consulted this week and revealed that over the last 10 winters I’ve caught a total of 11 colds, nine of which were head colds and two a bit worse (man-flu?). Statistics from one website reckoned this tally was normal for an adult from the western world, while another reckoned it was below the average.

Rarely does a winter go by without at least one cold, so it was encouraging to read that generally we catch fewer the older we get.    After the age of 50, the average person suffers 1-2 per year, whereas 20-somethings have 2-3 and small children many more. There are around 200 known cold viruses, and by the time you’ve hit middle age it seems you’ve had most of them and therefore built up resistance.

Picking my way through the tosh and piffle you tend to find on the internet, I found it was commonly believed you can only catch any of the 200 cold viruses once. Also, by the time you’re 50 you’ve probably had well over half of them. That’s all right then.

But the main reason for catching fewer colds is that older people tend to spend less of their lives in contact with cute little kiddies, who are actually contagious little rug-rats (bless!) and undoubtedly the main reservoir of cold viruses. Additionally, the old and decrepit spend less time shaking hands and kissing everyone they meet, not to mention sharing office coffee cups and biscuit barrels.

Other ways that the old ‘uns avoid viruses are by wearing gloves on public transport, and by avoiding gyms and health clubs. Gyms are sweaty, warm places and the ideal breeding ground for bacteria and viruses, I am told. Many venues make a feeble effort at combatting this by urging you to bring a towel to wipe down the machines before and after use. Right. Just don’t touch anybody else’s towel is probably better advice.

Being fit, healthy and outdoorsy should mean us runners succumb to viruses less often than Mr and Mrs Average - but don’t forget that if you over-train and get constantly exhausted, your immune system could become knackered. There’s a fine line to be trod.

Every rule has its exceptions, though, and a certain Simon Coombes on the Runners World forum reckons he always “trains like an idiot”, but hasn’t had a cold for more than five years. He credits this to the copious amounts of fizzy Vitamin C he consumes.

The idea that we runners can catch a cold because we are often under-dressed, or wearing wet clothes, in cold weather, is of course a myth. You have to have a virus to catch cold - getting damp and chilly alone won’t do it. It follows that you're far more likely to be vulnerable by staying indoors with the central heating turned up. That’s what we fresh-air freaks always say, anyway.

OK, so stay outside and stop touching each other. What else should we do?

Many reckon nasal sprays are good news. Vick’s First Defence and others are jelly-like substances which coat the virus so it can’t attach itself to the lining of the nose. Being slightly acidic (which cold viruses dislike) stimulates are secreted to wash the virus away. This all sounds like good sense and research has apparently proved the sprays can halve the likelihood of getting a cold.

Another good way to avoid colds is to banish stress. Easier said than done, that one. A research project in the USA saw 276 healthy volunteers asked about the stresses in their lives, before cold viruses were deliberately plonked inside their nostrils. Nice work if you can get it.

Those who had reported chronic stress - especially troubles with partners, family or friends - were found to be more than twice as likely to get a cold after their noses had been fiddled around with. Chronic stress affects the immune system was the conculsion. Chill out to avoid a chill, folks.

If you’re willing to pay heed to the clever dicks who post on the Runners World forum, you might be interested in the claims of NeonBlueMidnight. He or she recently announced: “ I'm one of those people who never gets flu and colds, the last time I can remember being sick was chicken pox at around 6 or 7. The secret is being easy on your body so your immune system has enough energy to deal with invasions. Eating a minimal amount of toxic food is key.

“Cut out processed foods and make the majority of your diet from fresh fruit and vegetables, eating a minimum of anything cooked.” Do as I do, postulated NeonBlueMidnight, and you’ll never get a virus, “Even if you lick the pole on the subway!”

One last point: If we do catch a cold (and chances are we will), should we stick to the famous old adage ‘Feed a cold, starve a fever.’? Oh dear. It’s another old wives’ tale, apparently. There’s no real evidence to back it up, the only agreed advice being to drink plenty of fluids in either case.

Which backs up my own theory: The best thing for man-flu is simply to get another round of Guinness in.

* Check out Rob Hadgraft’s books on the history of running: www.robhadgraft.com

Shrubb's Fame Flowers Again

ABOVE: "Tell me about your dad!" Alf Shrubb's daughter
Norah gets the third degree.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

WHEN it comes to gimmicks, you can forget Mo Farah’s mobot and Usain Bolt’s lightning bolt. When Alf Shrubb won a race (which was often), he’d simply stroll to the changing rooms, fetch his camera and take a picture of the man coming in second. Now that’s what I call class.

Shrubb was so damn good that race promoters couldn’t find a single human being to give him a decent race. Eventually they had to resort to horses.

And when he beat the horses, someone had the idea of racing him single-handedly against entire relay teams. That was easy - he barely broke sweat.

Alfred Shrubb was THE sporting superstar of the Edwardian era, a man whose running achievements, looked at today, simply beggar belief.

This weekend I’ll be joining dozens of other runners to pay homage to the man once known as ‘The Little Wonder,’ an athlete virtually unbeatable for ten years at all distances between 2 and 20 miles. On Sunday morning (October 7th) the Alf Shrubb 5-mile Memorial XC race winds its way across the same West Sussex fields and paths the great man used to cover himself.

It’s nearly half-a-century since Shrubb shuffled off this mortal coil and began circling that great running track in the sky. By the time this multi-world-record holder died in 1964, his incredible achievements as a distance runner had been largely forgotten. As the years rolled by, people would often hark back to the days of history-makers like Roger Bannister and Harold Abrahams, but the name of Shrubb somehow dropped off the radar completely.

Now, I’m glad to report, all that has changed. My 320-page biography of Shrubb was published a while back and helped set in motion a chain of events that have given his fame a new lease of life. A yearly 8k road-race in his name has become well established in Canada, he’s been inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame, the annual Shrubb memorial cross-country was introduced at his birthplace, an entertaining Shrubb website has been launched – and now he even has a dedicated page on Facebook.

Shrubb’s talent was first spotted when he chased and beat a fire-wagon to a haystack blaze while wearing working boots! The local athletics club signed him up and before long he was winning everything - and along came the big guns of South London Harriers to woo him away.

He smashed records galore, won national and international titles with ease, and was recognised as the finest distance runner on the planet long before deciding to emigrate to Canada between the wars. He settled just outside Toronto, where in 2012 they are as proud of him as we are over here.

Allen Storie, the Canadian club runner who launched the road-race in Shrubb’s name, coined the phrase ‘Shrubbmania’ to describe the renaissance of interest in recent years of this forgotten hero.

21st century Shrubbmania kicked off thanks to a bizarre coincidence. One day in early 2003, beginning my research for the book on Shrubb, I made contact with a museum in the little Ontario town of Bowmanville, where reportedly some Shrubb memorabilia was on display. It seemed a good place to start.

For years this museum had experienced little interest in their former local resident Shrubb, so were astonished to receive my transatlantic enquiry within hours of Allen Storie turning up at the door to ask the same questions!

Storie had stumbled upon the Shrubb legend while out running with a member of a long-established local family. Thousands of miles away, I had picked up on it while on holiday at a sports resort in the Canary Islands. Some quick ‘googling’ got me some tantalizing snippets of his life-story, including how he was controversially banned for accepting expenses, thus preventing certain gold at more than one Olympics. Shrubb’s reaction was to stick two fingers up at the English authorities, jump on a ship to North America and make a fortune as a professional.

As more aspects of his remarkable life came to light, it became clear that here was a book demanding to be written. Thus it came to pass I was rubbing shoulders at the training camp with a few well-known modern-day athletes, but was more interested in a runner better than any of them – and of whom they’d never heard!

Ideas born over a few beers in a bar sometimes fizzle out in the cold light of day - but this was different. My thought processes were lubricated by the half-price ice-cold lager on offer during happy hour, and by the time I next spoke with my publisher back in Essex, the idea was well formed.

Meanwhile in Canada, my new acquaintance Allen Storie (known locally as ‘Running Pal Al’) was forging ahead with his Alfie Shrubb road race idea. Our projects got off the launch-pad simultaneously and this two-way enthusiasm fed and nourished progress. Researching Shrubb’s exploits was a joy: I unearthed dusty treasure troves of material and a visit to his 89-year-old daughter near the banks of Lake Ontario was the icing on the cake.

The book was written over four months beside Sydney’s glorious Northern Beaches in Australia (that’s another story), where national hero and track legend Ron Clarke revealed himself to be a big Shrubb fan, and agreed to write the foreword to the book.

The finished product was well received, I’m glad to say, and even got honourable mentions at the William Hill Sports Book of the Year bash. Shrubb’s daughter Norah must have also been impressed, for after seeing the book she promptly handed over an ancient suitcase packed tight with personal papers and other memorabilia handed down by her famous dad. It was no easy matter carting this back to the UK, but more Shrubb treasures couldn’t possibly be turned down, could they? Enough for a second book maybe?

This weekend I expect to be running alongside at least two distant relatives of the great man in the 3rd Shrubb Memorial Cross-country in Slinfold, his picturesque birthplace just outside Horsham. This race comes hot on the heels of 500 Canadians assembling in Bowmanville at the 8k road-race in his name. Six-year-old Zoe (Shrubb’s great-great-great-granddaughter) started a junior race that morning, representing a fourth generation of Shrubbs to attend that event.

Shrubb himself was a modest chap by all accounts, but I suspect if he were looking down on events all these years after he quietly passed away, he would be proud and astonished at how his fame lives on.

* “The Little Wonder – The Untold Story of World Champion Runner Alf Shrubb” by Rob Hadgraft (Desert Island Books, ISNBN 1-874287-81-3) is available as hardback, softback or e-book for Kindle. More details at www.robhadgraft.com

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How snobbish Walter created a sport for the masses!

Some cross-country races are wetter than others!

THE autumn equinox arrived last week to usher in the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. 

It was the annual reminder I needed to dig out my battered New Balance cross-country shoes (faded blue uppers, but with bright orange laces). Inevitably they were encrusted with dried mud from a long-forgotten race of at least six months ago. They look a bit the worse for wear to be honest, but then so does their owner. 

Quite appropriate, then, that later in the week I should encounter the famous chap who first brought cross-country running to the masses. The man universally regarded as the founding father of the sport.

When I say I encountered Mr.Walter Rye - with his stern face, beard and bowler hat - I use the term loosely. Our confrontation was actually during the course of research for a book, rather than a face-to-face meeting. Walter has been dead and buried for 84 years after all.

So how come Walter can claim to have ‘invented’ cross-country running then? Well, apparently it all started after he read about public school steeplechases across fields in the novel Tom Brown’s Schooldays. He was enchanted by the tale of the ‘Barby Hill Steeplechase’ in that book and in 1867 decided to hold his own version, to help him and a few pals from Thames Rowing Club get fit for the next rowing season.

This form of running had irst been adopted in public schools in the 1830s and became known as ‘hare and hounds’ and 'paper chasing'. To help runners find their way, the ‘hare’ went off alone to lay a paper trail for the pack of ‘hounds’ to follow, carrying a large sausage-shaped canvas bag full of torn or cut paper, usually obtained from a local bookbinders. A small handful would be dropped every 20 yards or so to mark the route. Occasionally short false trails would be laid to make the competition harder!

Walter’s idea to take this sport outside of schools and into the public arena would ultimately prove a huge success. But initially he never intended it as an activity for ‘the common man’.  Far from it. In fact, our Walter was a real snob who restricted his races to ‘gentleman amateurs’ from privileged backgrounds only.

He set up the exclusive Thames Hare & Hounds club and staged a series of paper-chases for the privileged in the London area. Before long others would being copying the idea and eventually men from all walks of life were leaping over hedges and five-bar gates and crossing ploughed fields as if their lives depended on it. 

Walter was known as a tireless organiser, laying trails himself and competing too, also promoting the sport vigorously via his professional writing. Despite his views on class, he was the undisputed ‘father’ of a new craze that still thrives nearly 150 years later.

But for years he had no truck with working-class runners, regarding them as gamblers, fixers and scoundrels, only interested in making money.  Nowadays it’s hard to imagine a man being excluded from a run for coming from the wrong side of the tracks, but this situation existed thanks to Walter and his class-obsessed fellow Victorians. 

In time things improved after the England Cross-Country Association was formed, but Walter and his snobbish TH&H pals refused to sign up citing their concerns about the purity of the sport. Their isolation would last for 40 years!

Walter’s efforts at organising the world's first cross-country championship took place in Essex in 1876 and ended in disaster.  The event would ultimately flourish and become known as the iconic ‘English National’, but Walter's first staging certainly didn’t go according to plan. It was held at Buckhurst Hill, on the edge of Epping Forest and involved the three senior cross-country clubs from London (Thames Hare & Hounds, South London Harriers and Spartan Harriers). Thirty-two men assembled on a rain-soaked afternoon and watched as a civil servant called Sydenham Dixon set off to lay the paper trail (‘the bloodless scent’) over an 11-mile route.

The runners headed after him through the trees, finding the going very heavy. But barely five miles later, soon after passing the Old Crown Inn at Loughton, the leaders found the trail suddenly disappeared.  Freezing cold and drenched to the skin, they were not amused to be stranded in the forest, miles from anywhere and without a clue where to go.

What had happened?  An embarrassed Walter was furious when he found out. This is how the story was reported in one newspaper: “It appears a local idiot had been entrusted with an extra bag of scent [paper], with directions to take it to the Old Crown, but had taken it to some other house in mistake. How anyone could entrust any uninterested person with so important a mission passes our comprehension. We do not even see why a second supply of scent was needed at all. It is a common thing for hares to carry sufficient scent for a 15 miles run in the ordinary way, so why not for 11 on a special occasion? The whole thing is unpardonable . . . several weeks of careful training was thrown to the dogs.”

As they dithered around in the cold and wet, some runners began to feel unwell and at least one was given a massage with some brandy to get him warm again.  Another runner grabbed the brandy and put it to more conventional use – pouring it down his throat: “Next thing I remember is waking up in the Old Pavilion Music Hall!” he reported later.

This Epping Forest disaster was soon forgotten and an undaunted Walter organised a re-run of the championship a few weeks later on Wimbledon Common. This was won by Percy Stenning, who ran along smoking a pipe! It proved a big success and the sport of cross-country running has hardly looked back since.

Here in 2012, we don’t smoke pipes on the run, or bother with paper trails any more, but getting lost in the woods does sound distinctly familiar!

* Check out Rob Hadgraft’s books on the history of running, at  www.robhadgraft.com