From Last to First: How I Became a Marathon Champion

by Charlie Spedding

It may be the oldest trick in the book, but accelerating past a water station still works.

The World Champion had been dropped with a slight increase in pace, and his departure was a timely reminder that reputations count for nothing in the heat of competition.

I wanted my action to be decisive, but not suicidal. I knew I had to hold it for another five miles.

A big concern was always diet; so much so that I think a lot of newcomers to running were hoping they would be able to eat themselves into peak physical condition, rather than follow my advice, which involved quite a lot of training. There were various fad foods, supplements and diets, and I was often asked if eating this or that would improve performance.

It was my constant hope that among all the people I came across, I might really, truly reach somebody.

Young runners often regard international athletes as creatures from a superior species, who possess powers and talents that are denied to ordinary mortals. I may have thought the same way if I hadn’t mingled with them on a weekly basis, but because I ran with them so regularly, I rather naively adopted a different attitude.

My club-mates were going away to run in major championships, so I assumed that this was the natural thing to do. Thanks to their achievements, I quietly, almost sub-consciously, adopted very high expectations for myself. These expectations took a very long time to fulfil, but they were definitely formed in my early days at Gateshead Harriers, thanks to the presence of people like Brendan Foster.

When I was about to run some big race and felt concerned about how many good runners I was up against, he would say that I could dismiss half of them, because half of them would beat themselves with nerves; that would only leave half and surely I could beat half of them.

With one lap to go I made up my mind that nobody else was going to pass me, but ten yards later a runner came up beside me. It was John Caine, who had started more slowly, but was now working his way through. He urged me to work together with him. I stuck to him and we passed one and then another. Suddenly, I was feeling better; I was still tired and working hard, but we were moving through, and nobody was passing us. It was easier to push myself on with John as my pacemaker.

One of the best measures of physical fitness is how quickly you recover from being out of breath, but we ran down the other side and along the level still gasping for breath.

It may come as no surprise to you that I haven’t seen her for a lot of years, but I have heard through the grapevine that she still tells the story of the strange man who took her on a date, and went for a five mile run in the middle of it.

One of the places I had been to in Newcastle was a bookshop. I had bought a couple of novels, a notepad, and a copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary. I pulled the notepad and a pen out of my bag and laid them on the table. I felt like I needed to make a plan. I had committed myself to running when I walked away from my father’s business, but I didn’t seem to know how I was going to fulfil whatever potential I had. All I had done was burn my bridges, and I felt unsure about how to make progress. I needed to do something different, but I didn’t know what.

I picked up my pen and wrote, ‘What do I want?’ at the top of the page. I started to make a list of things like ‘improve my times’ and ‘win more races’, but I soon realised that I had been trying to do those things for the past ten years.

For years I had assumed that my failure to run better was down to a combination of injuries and not training hard enough; but I started to wonder if it was my own self-image that was holding me back. If making a presentation could create such a strong physical reaction, then surely the prospect of winning a big race could cause a reaction that was strong enough to make sure I didn’t win. Perhaps ‘running quite well but not winning’ was exactly what my subconscious self-image thought I should be doing.

I knew nothing about their talents, experience or ability, but from the words they used, I could tell a lot about their attitude. Thomas wasn’t looking forward to all the work involved, especially as there was no guarantee of success, whereas Paul didn’t seem worried about the work because it might bring success. I realised how similar this was to a running career. There was no guarantee of success after years and years of training, but the work had to be done to provide the chance of success.

But I was starting to realise that although I had an attitude that made me diligent in my training, it wasn’t the same thing as having an attitude that would make me successful in my running.

But what I was trying to develop wasn’t positive thinking, it was specific thinking. Like using the right words, I wanted to think in a precise way that would make me more successful.

Reaching my ultimate success would be a journey of many stages. I had to set more goals. I had to keep asking myself ‘what do I want?’ on a short term, medium term and long term basis. My long term goal was to be the best I could be, but I was in a competitive, measured sport and I had to achieve some clearly defined steps. It would be crazy to set off on a journey without knowing the route. I picked up my pen and three times I underlined the words ‘what do I want?’

I decided that thinking and doing things differently to the average person was necessary to be better than average, but it would sometimes make me stand out as different. The way to deal with this was to embrace it, have fun with it and try to enjoy it. I also decided to develop the ability to switch things round in my head, so that when I was faced with a problem I didn’t react to it, but instead I responded to it by finding something positive and useful in it.

I also realised that making the drastic move from home to America had my sub-conscious mind thinking, ‘he really means it’. I had become committed; truly committed in a way that many runners never grasp.

I had never been good at hill running and I was struggling to keep up with Greg on the steepest section until I copied him and took shorter, faster strides. Reducing stride length to run faster doesn’t seem logical but it works on steep hills.

There are some runners who think that years of training will completely disappear if you have a week off. It is not true. Two weeks after my rest, I ran the Saucony 10K in Boston, and won it in 29:14.

Boulder, Colorado was, and still is, a favourite place for runners.

I learnt the most important thing about marathon running, which many runners never give themselves the chance to learn; I learnt how to race the marathon rather than run it. I learnt how to judge my pace; how to make a long, sustained run for home; how to finish strongly; and how it is possible to win from a long way off the pace.

I felt great about them all being so far ahead. They had to be running at something like 2 hours 8 minute pace, and the faster they went the more certain I was that we would catch them later. I had learnt in Houston that you don’t have to keep them in sight to beat them.

I had thirteen weeks between London and the Olympic Marathon, and a lot of people were saying this wasn’t long enough for anyone to prepare properly. I believed it was. I think people struggle to deal with this sort of timetable because they don’t give themselves enough time to recover fully from the first marathon, before training for the second one. I regarded a full recovery as my first priority, and I saw no point in training to the limit again until both my mind and body had recovered from London. I wasn’t at all worried about missing training, because I had been in such good condition at London, and all that fitness doesn’t completely disappear during a spell of easy running.

Top runners have to be determined, focused and committed, but to be really top class you have to be able to make the right decisions under pressure. In fact, I think the ability to make the right decisions under pressure is one of the most important and least appreciated factors in sporting success. Obsessive compulsives often fall short of their potential because, when they are under pressure, they revert to their compulsive behaviour, and make the wrong decisions. I think that taking two weeks to recover from the London Marathon was a correct decision, and one that an obsessive compulsive would have got wrong.

Racing a marathon successfully is a balancing act between discipline and freedom of expression.

I have met a lot of runners who think that if they get the training right, the race will take care of itself. I have never believed that. The training has to be done, but I think you have to make a good race happen, and to do that you have to prepare your mind.

There is nothing like setting a stiff goal, which is accomplished, for giving you the confidence to aim for a higher goal.

I am convinced that the minimum requirement to achieve something is to believe that it is possible.

I suffered too much from pre-race nerves. I was nervous for months beforehand, and it drained me. I went to the start line with dread instead of anticipation, and I was beaten before the race began. In the past I had always produced my best results in big races with plenty at stake. I had always been nervous, but I had been able to channel that energy into my performance. So what was different this time? The answer is very simple – it wasn’t my goal. I have mentioned this a few times but I am going to repeat it because it is so important. What do I want? Why do I want it? How much do I want it? Being able to answer these questions to my own satisfaction had always produced my best results.

If somebody asked if I would like to be Commonwealth Champion I would say yes, but that’s just a conversation; it isn’t commitment. The desire to achieve something has to be born inside you, grow inside you and blossom and flourish inside you, until you know what you want, and why you want it, and how much it means. A goal formed this way is an incredibly powerful motivator, but a goal somebody else chooses for you, becomes a burden and then a shackle.

I stood up. I knew I was unfit now, but surely I could get fit in ten months. I knew it would be a long, slow process so I started with a compromise. I walked up the hill, and then ran the rest of the way home.

Kevin and I were there for four weeks with our wives and children, and Steve let us live as if the house belonged to us. Wherever I have been in the world, I have always found that if you are genuinely and honestly trying to do your best at something, people seem to appear out of nowhere to help you. Steve was very generous to us and I think he enjoyed telling his friends that two marathon runners were using his house for Olympic preparation.

By 25 kilometres the group was down to 13, and I was still there. Doing well in the Olympic marathon is really simple. Get yourself in the leading group and just stay there while everybody else drops off. Like most things in life, it’s simple, but not easy! I was still there but I wasn’t finding it easy.

I was still trying to tell myself that sixth is ok and seventh is nowhere, but my body was screaming at me to slow down. All the little voices in my head were saying stop, sit down, lie down, you’ll feel better. I was in trouble. I was in big trouble and I still had a mile and three quarters to run. I had to think of something drastic, and something drastic came to mind. I made a deal. I made a pact with myself. If I could keep this going to the finish line I would never have to run another marathon. To get through this, I needed all the thoughts in my head to work together. A promise was made and we agreed. After all the running we had done, we could manage one more mile and a half, no matter how hard it was.

I was running on empty, and I couldn’t ignore the pain in my legs, but I shut out every other thought, and focused on running. I forgot about the stadium, and I forgot about the finish line, and I narrowed my thoughts down and down to a single point – running. The finish line would come eventually, but for now I had to run a yard, and then another one.

If you don’t believe the mind is the most important factor in athletic performance, it’s quite simple – you are wrong. The chance to run this race wasn’t handed to me out of the blue like the Commonwealth Games; it was a goal I had made sitting on a cold, dark road when I was too tired to run up a hill. If you don’t believe it is vital to know what you want, why you want it and how much you want it, it’s quite simple – you are wrong.

For years I, and most other runners, had a simplistic approach: run a lot of miles to develop endurance, and then run fast to develop speed; put the two together and race well. When training like this, I ran dozens of track races where I was going well, but would fade badly over the last two or three laps. I always thought I needed to do more speed work to make me faster, but I was wrong. I didn’t need speed I needed lactic acid tolerance.

We all used to run slowly for stamina, and quickly for speed, and think we were ready to race, but we rarely trained at race pace.

Lindsay Dunn has a different approach to all of this and I agree with him. Lindsay has taken several groups of athletes to altitude and invariably had success. His approach is to reduce the distances but run quickly in both the steady runs and track sessions. Neither can be done as quickly as they would be at sea level, but a fast pace, with reduced oxygen, produces a considerable training effect upon the entire cardiovascular system, from the pumping heart to the chemical processes at cellular level. When you return to sea level you can train the muscular and nervous systems to run faster because the cardiovascular system is no longer such a limiting factor. To achieve this progress at sea level requires such hard training that it risks injury. Most coaches will say that it is pointless going to altitude for less than three weeks. If all you want to do is maximise red blood cells they are right, but with Lindsay Dunn’s approach, you can gain benefits in as few as ten days.

If I’d had a sports psychologist working with me before the Commonwealth Games and the 1987 London marathon, I am positive I would have done much better in those events. Nobody had sports psychologists in those days, but they do now. British Cycling regards their psychologist as an essential member of the team. Athletics needs to follow their lead.

I have tried to understand the arguments for noncompetitive sports day, but they don’t make any sense. Every single aspect of life is competitive and to deny this, and hide children from it, is irresponsible. They say that the children who come last at sports day shouldn’t be subjected to such public humiliation. I’ve been to a lot of sports events and school sports, and I have never seen anybody laughed at or humiliated for trying their best.

These people must think that sport is all about seeing what you can get out of it, but they are wrong, because sport is all about seeing what it gets out of you.

I have no idea what books he reads but I am going to guess that Diego Maradona has never read Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. If you haven’t read it yet I won’t spoil it for you, but I will recommend that anyone contemplating cheating should read it before they do so. It might save them from a great deal of anguish, and the slippery slope that lead to Maradona’s banishment from the sport he once graced.

Peaking is a fantastic way for an underdog to shine, but it is always better if you can be consistently top class.

You often hear people say, ‘It’s not the winning that counts; it’s the taking part.’ I really don’t like to hear that because it implies that winning doesn’t matter, just turn up and enjoy it. It is a dreadful misquote. It is a misquote by omission and it fails to explain ‘taking part’. The complete Olympic Creed explains it fully: ‘The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.’