Life on the Run (21 page)

Chapter Fourteen:
The Reading Half Marathon

Over the years I have organised, or been part of, many different events. Organising any event, whether sporting or otherwise, requires the same dedication, direction and enthusiasm if it is to succeed. The largest of these events was the Reading Half Marathon, and many of the other running events mentioned elsewhere. Other activities have included large Celebrity Dinners for SportsAid at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London, from 1995 to 1998. These dinners were a highlight of fund raising for SportsAid, and there were some interesting speakers, including Jeffrey Archer who came more than once, and on one occasion helped with the auction which raised a lot of money. He had come direct from a meeting with Margaret Thatcher, and had persuaded her to give him her autobiography to auction and this raised a four figure sum. He also auctioned his latest book, but that only raised £50. Each year we were able to auction a special print of Grand National Winner Bob Champion on Aldaniti, signed by both the jockey and the artist Bryan Organ. This always raised four figure sums for the charity with the help of Bob Champion himself who often attended. Other regular supporters at this and our golf days, were Nicholas Parsons, Robert Powell, Henry Cooper, Jimmy Hill, Phil Parkes, Michael Barratt, Sally Gunnell, Steven Redgrave, Matthew Pinsent and many more stars from stage and sport - the stars were always introduced by Paul Dickenson from BBC Sport, himself an ex-athlete. Refereeing It's a Knockout and Reading Top Team Competitions; organising Golf Tournaments and a Corporate Challenge, again for SportsAid; the Gala Nights of Sport in Reading, and the town's Skillmaster (Superstars) Competition; all these activities have called on me for help, as well as the many running events mentioned. But the very big one turned out to be also the most traumatic and wearing on my health and temper.

In 1982, after the success of the first London Marathon in 1981, suggestions were being made that Reading should have some sort of marathon like the big event. A lot of people in the media, and in the running clubs, suggested to me that I should start something big in the town. I had already organised a number of fun runs and had a high profile at the time because of my marathon run from France, so I think this is why I was approached to set up this special event. Little did I know what a battle it was going to be, or what the eventual financial burden was going to be for me. I spoke to Reading Borough Council, and a young lady in the Leisure Department had been pushing them to start a similar event, with the idea of raising money to plant trees in Broad Street, Reading.

After a couple of meetings, it was decided that the matter should be put through the town's Leisure Committee. The suggestion was put to that committee, and I remember waiting outside for the verdict. I did not have to wait long before the young lady came out from the meeting crying and very upset. They had turned down the joint proposal, BUT if I wanted to go ahead they would give the event its blessing, but no money.

I quickly started work on finding a sponsor, as I had been told there could be no financial support from the Borough. My first conversation was with Courage, one of the major companies in the town. I had put out some publicity about the proposed event and within days I was being pursued by various people from Digital Equipment, a company who were growing very fast in the area, and their finance director was a man with a very apt name, Martin Ranwell. Digital would not let go and rang me daily for a decision. A meeting was arranged and they quickly agreed to sponsor an event, at this stage not knowing whether it would be the full marathon distance like London, or something that was still very new on the running scene, a half marathon.

With the guarantee of £5,000 from the sponsor, work started on the first event. A committee was put in place which included a representative of RBC, Terry Harding, the sponsors Digital, Marcus Palliser, and two from the running scene, John London a new mature runner, and myself as chairman. A little later a representative of Reading University, Ian Moir would join us, along with Ken Bridges, a former Chief Officer of the Berkshire Fire Service, who agreed to be responsible for the marshalling of the event. A few years later that position was taken over by a new chief marshal, Bernard Patterson, who before his retirement was the police superintendent in charge of the police for the first few half marathons. The chief marshal from the late eighties was Lieutenant Colonel Malcolm Bryant, who had himself been a very good runner with Reading AC. Very quickly the decision was made that a full marathon was going to be too complex to arrange in the town of Reading, and the half distance was settled on.

Then a route had to be found, and at this stage the police were brought in for their comments. It was decided that the university would be a good starting and finishing point, but where should the runners go in between? Everyone agreed the race should cover all points of the town, and hopefully incorporate the river and its bridges. One of our exploratory visits arranged by the council was to Caversham, and we looked at running along the Warren and up through the woods by a narrow path to Upper Warren Avenue, a residential area. It was the first indication I had as to how difficult it was going to be to convince the local mandarins what a big event it was going to be, and what was required to make it a success. The suggested route was totally impracticable even for a small field of a few hundred runners. A number of other suggestions were looked at, including a run along the towpath and under Reading Bridge; again fortunately rejected in view of what was to happen when the event was launched; thousands of runners and not the few hundred some people expected. Finally a route was found that satisfied all the requirements of the time.

In October 1982 Digital held the first launch of a half marathon in the town. It was to be held from the university at Whiteknights on Sunday, 13
th
March 1983. The entry forms were put out with an entry fee of £2.50, and by the end of December an entry of around 5,000 had been received.

At the launch the
Reading Evening Post
decided they would like some ‘guinea pig' runners - people to run who had never run in their lives. These were a married couple from Winnersh, Christine and Maurice Shackleford. She was a thirty-six-year-old ward clerk at Reading's Royal Berkshire Hospital, and he was forty-one years old, and a bricklayer. The third one of these brave three was Eileen O'Neill, who was already fifty-three years old, and who would be the first to admit she was not the shape or type of person to take up running. They all trained hard and were ready to go on their big adventure on 13
th
March 1983. The three volunteers had been selected from others to train and run the 13.1 miles. All were totally new to running, and they took on a training programme so that they could cover the distance. Eileen O'Neill, the fifty-three-year-old, who six months earlier could not run more than a few yards, finished in two hours fifteen minutes. The husband and wife couple, Maurice and Christine Shackleford, both finished in good times; Maurice in 1:42 and Christine in just on two hours. These three people were guinea pigs in every sense, and proved that people who were unfit with no experience could run a half marathon in reasonable time.

Everything was new about the event. Where do you go for a results system, time clocks, marshals, special medals and all the other things now associated with the big event? Today organisers have it easy, especially at events like Reading, where the hard work was done on research and the setting up in those early days.

As the event got nearer another challenge was thrown at it, and it was something that was going to have a lasting effect on the race and on me personally. The committee were approached by the British Sports Association for the Disabled, to see if we would allow competitors in wheelchairs to take part. The two officials from BSAD who pushed for this, were Philip Lewis MBE, and Alan Crouse, and they were so keen that they persuaded us the organisers to accept wheelchair athletes. This presented another problem, was the route suitable, and what to do about the finish where it was intended to run the last few hundred yards on grass? We took the challenge so seriously that we even tried to persuade the Army to lay a temporary hard surface on the grass. In the end we opted for the cheaper option, and the wheelchair competitors finished on the road opposite the ‘real' finish, but accurately measured so they did complete the full distance. It was a great success, and their participation added a special dimension to this big new event, and I have maintained an interest in sport for disabled people from that time until the present day.

The excitement built up around the event in the following months and the media got very interested, especially Radio 210 as it was then (now 2TenFM).

On that big day, Sunday, 13
th
March, around 5,000 runners lined up to take part in an exciting experience. Many of them had never run anything like 13.1 miles before, and at 10 a.m., the Mayor of Reading, Councillor George Robinson, sent them on their way. It was a beautiful day and warm for the time of year. As the runners ran around the streets it was not without a few problems, as the motorists had also not experienced anything like this before either; road closures and single lane operations.

There were no obvious big names in the race, and no one had any idea who would triumph in this first Reading Half Marathon. The hour passed and then at about sixty-five minutes the winner came in sight and entered the university grounds. He was a very fit young runner from Reading University itself, twenty-one years old Mark Couzens, and he crossed the line in 67:45, to be adorned with a wreath of flowers by the Mayor, George Robinson.

It was a great triumph for local runners, with the team from Reading Athletic Club winning the team trophy for the first time. Their first runner was Paul Lanfear in second place, with Ron Tyler third, Peter Mitchell seventh, and Robert Love eleventh. They had many more in the first fifty places, including Bob Allden in twenty-third place, the second veteran over forty behind the winner Malcolm Moody (Burnham Joggers).

The runners then flowed in and kept coming for over three hours; some fit, some struggling, many in fancy dress and all enjoyed the experience of the finish and receiving their medal, even if the getting there had been tougher than they thought. There was a great carnival atmosphere as the runners wandered around after they had finished eating their Mars bars and having a drink in the sun.

It had been a great success, and not least of all financially, and BSAD benefited by around £17,000 in that year from the self-sponsorship of runners, and a £5,000 donation from the event organisers.

Apart from the success of the race, there was another big surprise for me at the presentations. I had arranged the production of all the trophies but, unknown to me, John London had worked behind the scene to add an extra trophy, the Stan Eldon Trophy for the first wheelchair athlete.

Reading had not seen anything like this sporting/community event before, and the local media were ecstatic and lavish in their praise with banner headlines and leader columns. One article was by journalist Shelley Alexander, who ran the distance in 2:24, encouraged by her then boyfriend and later husband, international and Manchester United footballer Neil Webb.

There were many interesting stories created around the race that bright sunny day; most were happy, but there was also one sad result. A runner from Burnham Joggers, Stan Tugwood, who was seventy-two years old, the oldest runner to complete the first ever Reading Half Marathon, who had been a runner all his life, collapsed at the finish. He had run the London Marathon twice, and the New York Marathon, and was using Reading as training for another London. He had some chest pains before the Reading race, but did not want to let people down by not running. He went home with the help of Dr Bob Green, who was the founder of the Burnham Joggers, but died of a heart attack at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough in the early hours of the next morning. He made one last request; that his last medal should be buried with him, and that request was carried out when he was buried at Marlow a few days later. It was pleasing to me that the media treated the whole matter with decency, and there were no scare headlines to put people off running after such a successful day.

The other stories had much happier endings. The vicar of a local church, Reverend David Evans, ran for his church roof fund and raised over £1,000. Perhaps the biggest story of the race was the first appearance of a young man in a sporting event who was to go on and compete in many London Marathons, as well as become a Paralympic Gold Medallist. The seventeen-year-old was Peter Hull, who although without arms or legs had taken part and completed the 13.1 miles. He received the Douglas Jacobs Special Award for his achievement. Later at his school, the Hephaistos School at Arborfield, he was presented with a new state of the art racing wheelchair, donated by the manufacturers C. F. Hewerdine Ltd., from Egham in Surrey. They had decided to give him the special ‘chariot' after his story appeared in the
Reading Evening Post
. A local prison officer ran with one of his previous charges, who had only left prison two days before the Reading race, and there were many more human stories around that first very special event.

A
Reading Evening Post
photographer, Ian Pert, won a Kodak Picture of 1983 award for his photograph of a runner applauding a wheelchair competitor as he worked hard on the climb up to Whitley Street.

The trophies and medals had all been specially commissioned, and made locally by Paul Ranson of Nash and Co, a local jeweller and W. H. Ryder and Son (Reading) Ltd., architectural woodmasters, who did specialist work in cathedrals, on cruise ships and at top of the market hotels. Ridd Ryder was a member of my Rotary Club at Caversham, and we had worked together on many major Rotary events together.

The first big after-event reaction to the race was regarding the inclusion of wheelchair racers. The London Marathon in 1981 and 1982 had refused to accept them into that event, but the
Sunday Times
now took up the story and had a full report on how successful their inclusion at Reading had been, and urged London to do the same. In fact Tony Banks, then with the GLC and later sports minister, said in the article
“No wheelchairs,
no marathon.”
It worked, and Chris Brasher relented and wheelchair athletes were admitted to the 1983 race that followed a couple of months later. A few years later I was to find myself as Chairman of the London Wheelchair Marathon Committee. It was an interesting experience and one that was not without some controversy, and I refer to this later in this book.