London Marathon 1987
London diary [In 1986, I started work at Queen Mary College, London, while still living in Wolvercote, on the northern edge of Oxford looking over Port Meadow. To celebrate the move, I applied for a place in the 1987 London marathon. This diary records what happened. During this time, Hester was 11, Neill 9 and James 7. Footnotes are editorial, having been added while typing it up. – PJC, January 2014.] Saturday 6/12/86 A fat letter came for me this morning. Through the address window my age, 40, was clearly visible – a double injustice since I am in fact 39. From this I was able to guess what it must be, and from the thickness of the letter I assumed that the answer must be yes. I had been almost certain that I wouldn’t get in. My qualifications – a veteran, never run a marathon before, and (presumably most important) never been turned down for the London before – didn’t look too good, in view of the “one in four” that had been quoted. They weren’t to know (and certainly wouldn’t have been interested if they had known) that, in my long-gone youth, I was Australian Uni- versities’ Cross-Country champion, University of Queensland Athletic Club track 10000 metres record holder (31.20) amd had run 15 miles on the road in 83.28; nor that, while yet far from those times, in the last few years I have come from complete unfitness to a half-marathon time of 79.39 at Witney this September. The only clue they had was that I had given my expected time as 3.05.00, which might be a little surprising coming from a veteran novice.
[Show full text]