February 2012 - Base Camp

[Bierzo Baggie]

He was a three-fast-runs-a-day, 200-miles-per-week kind of runner. In other words, f*cking insane.

Thanks for that about Derek Clayton. I really didn’t know anything about him. Even his Wikipedia page is surprisingly short of details. Noticed that he was born in Cumbria which is fell running country.

Anyway, I did a bit of research on UK runners who have got below 2:10 for the marathon.

1970s; Ron Hill and Ian Thompson.

1980s; Steve Jones (4 times) and Charlie Spedding (3 times) Geoff Smith, Alistair Hutton, Hugh Jones (twice) Mike Gratton, John Graham, Tony Milovsorov (remember him, he was a Tipton Harrier!)

1990s; Paul Evans (3 times) Richard Nerurkar, Jon Brown.

And since then, only Mark Steinle in 2002 and Jon Brown again in 2005.

45 years later and there certainly wouldn’t be any Brits capable of beating Clayton’s time. Sorry I’ve only looked at the UK men, but there probably wouldn’t be any Aussies either. And Spanish marathon running seemed to peak in the 1990s.

I find these statistics pretty amazing. At the end of the 80s you’d have said that the next generation would be running the same times as the Kenyans are running now. 2 05 at least. What happened?

Sub 2:10 in 1967. Smashed Bikila’s record by 2 and a half minutes. Truly amazing.

Congratulations on clocking up over 400km ! Enjoying the reports so far...