Monday Morning Hero
October 26th, 2009 by Gavin
During the biggest bowl of porridge ever made I read about Steve Jones, my Monday Morning Hero – “a steelworker’s son whose racing philosophy was “always to devastate the opposition”, who was fuelled by Coke, Mars bars and meat pies when he broke the world marathon record in Chicago and by 10 pints of cider (the night before) when he clocked a world half marathon record of 61min 14sec in Birmingham the same year.
“What I do is make it simple. There’s no science in it – no heart-rate monitors. It’s just running – running instinctively. Anyone who saw Steve Jones run in the Seventies, Eighties and early Nineties knew that he ran by the seat of his pants nearly all the time. You don’t see that any more and that’s what I’m trying to teach these guys. None of it comes out of a book. It all comes out of my own experience.”
3 Responses to “Monday Morning Hero”
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October 27th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Did steve jones not retire after charlie spedding beat him at London marathon and state “it’s time to stop when you get beaten by a guy who stopped for a dump in a tunnel”" Classic!!
October 27th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
JD I think that should be on a t-shirt !
October 27th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
London 1985 Jones prevailed in 2hr 08min 16sec – despite having to stop for an emergency road-side dump while running neck and neck with fellow Briton and Olympic bronze medallist Charlie Spedding with four miles to go. “I didn’t shake hands with him at the finish but that wasn’t because he had beaten me,” Spedding said.