Dance Marathon

At 9.00 am last Sunday morning around 35,000 pairs of trainers prepared to pound the capital’s streets in the Flora London Marathon.

At the same time, millions of people across 150 countries turned on their televisions, settled back with a cup of coffee and remain glued to the screen for the next three or four hours.

Why do so many people choose to put themselves through 26 miles 385 yards of physical and mental hell? And why do we want to watch them do it?

The first London Marathon took place in 1981, the result of a pub conversation over a few pints of bitter and the experience of the late Chris Brasher who had just run the New York City Marathon.

Brasher, an athlete and sports journalist, asked himself if London could host such a race: “We have the course . . . but do we have the heart and hospitality to welcome the world?”

Today the scale and success of one of the country’s most anticipated annual sporting events would give Brasher his answer. The London Marathon is a winning combination of spectacular setting and human drama.

The bobbing, multi-coloured ribbon of people weaves its way through some of London’s most iconic sites and outstanding architecture. Greenwich, Canary Wharf and Docklands, the City, the River Thames, Tower Bridge, the Embankment, Parliament Square, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and The Mall provide a suitably dramatic and beautiful backdrop to the stories of the thousands of individuals involved.

This year, 92,000 hopefuls applied for a starting place on Blackheath. We’re all impressed by the elite runners and wheelchair athletes with their two hour sprints along the course, but let’s face it, we’re much more interested in the real people.

These are the people who’ve spent months abstaining from booze and cakes, fundraising for their special charity and punishing themselves in training – all whilst holding down their normal job and home life. Applicants this year included 83 taxi drivers, 2,148 teachers, 383 secretaries, 95 pharmacists, 97 film makers, 586 builders and 405 accountants.

The youngest individuals who took part in this year’s race were Jonathan Smith and Siobhan Besford, both 18 years. The oldest were Buster Martin, aged 101 and Iva Barr, aged 80. Buster gained notoriety last year as a senior hero, for both refusing to take his 100th birthday off work and fending off a group of young attackers. He has since joined a band, The Zimmers, and become an agony uncle for lads’ mag, FHM.

Runners from Great Britain and Northern Ireland always make up the majority of participants in the London Marathon, with around 50 other countries represented.

Many runners hope to break other records as well as their personal bests. The Guinness World Records for running the marathon dressed as Elvis, on stilts, whilst knitting a scarf or carrying a coal bag were all up for grabs last Sunday.

The marathon is all about the strength of the human spirit and our ability to triumph over adversity. That’s why we are so touched by the stories of those running in honour of family or friends and the charities that have supported them.

We also love the men and women for whom one straightforward marathon just isn’t enough: those who run five consecutive races or run the marathon course backwards in the early hours of the morning and then start with everyone else to run it again, forwards the second time; and those 25 Metropolitan Police Officers who run together in a chain.

Another of the highlights of the London Marathon is the sight of some of our celebrities slogging it out on the city streets. Floella Benjamin OBE and world-renowned chef Michel Roux have both run 10 London Marathons; James Cracknell, Olympic rower and celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey are both event regulars.

Unlike many other sporting events, there is a special relationship between the participants and spectators. The athletes and the crowd interact, working together to lift the spirits of ailing runners and urge them on to the finishing line. Veterans of the endurance race say there is nothing like hearing your name being shouted to inspire you.

Of 36,396 starters last year, 35,694 were inspired to finish. More than 34,000 runners finished this year. Completion times over the years range from two hours five minutes 15 seconds to seven days. And it seems that the marathon is addictive to both viewers and participants alike, with thousands applying year after year, despite vowing ‘never again!’ as they cross the finish line.

In addition to raising cash, increasing awareness of charitable causes and promoting running as a sport, the marathon is also responsible for boosting the British tourist industry. The London Marathon attracts runners from around the world and also showcases our capital city to a global television audience. Some London hotels run special marathon deals and many participants stay at Heathrow airport hotels.

Since 2006 the London event has been part of the World Marathon Majors, a series of races which includes the world’s five biggest city marathons: Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York City.

The 100th anniversary of the Olympic Marathon will be marked officially at the Beijing Olympics.

Copyright © 2008 Ed Bagley

They ran the 112th Boston Marathon Monday (4-21-08). The triumph was that Robert Cheruiyot (try to say something close to Cherry-ott) of Kenya won his 4th Boston Marathon. The tragedy was that America hardly noticed.

Cheruiyot won the 26.2-mile race in 2 hours, 7 minutes and 45 seconds. He ran alone for the last several miles. Cheruiyot won the Boston Marathon in 2003, set the course record while winning in 2006, and won in 2007, making this year’s victory his 3rd straight and 4th in 6 years.

Excuse me while I inhale deeply due to boredom.

Two guys from Morocco finished 2nd and 3rd and two guys from Ethiopia finished 4th and 5thall of them have unpronounceable names. Imagine a Nike ad saying, “Run to Victory with Nike. Like Bouramdane, Boumlili, Asfaw and Adillo do!” Notice how American it sounds, and appreciate how difficult it can be to market foreign runners with foreign names in America.

No one seems to have the clarity to recognize it or nerve to say it so let me be the first: national track meets and famous marathons in America have sunk to a new low in interest because America cannot seem to produce American-born runners who can currently win signature events.

This is the short evolution of the oldest continuously running marathon in history: American Clarence DeMar won his 1st Boston Marathon in 1911 and his 7th in 1930. American Bill Rogers won his 1st in 1975 and his 4th in 1980.

A KenyanIbrahim Husseinwon in 1991and this year Robert Cheruiyot won. In between Hussein and Cheruiyot, Kenyans have won the race 14 times in 16 years and 16 times in 18 years, losing only to a South Korean in 2001 and an Ethiopian in 2005.

This year, when an American finished 10th, it was called a miracle in some running circles. Americans have not done squat in recent years.

Among 32 elite runners previewed as possible winners in this year’s competition, not a single American was even mentioned as a possible winner in our wildest imagination. More than 25,000 runners qualified for this year’s run and 98% finished.

If you are wondering, an EthiopianDire Tune (I swear I did not make her name up)won the women’s Boston Marathon. The first 5 women finishers were from anywhere but America.

Cheruiyot picked up $150,000 (the most ever) in prize money. Cheruiyot is a super guy and a world class runner. His main concern Monday was running 2 hours, 7 minutes and change because he wants to represent his countryKenyain this fall’s 2008 Olympic Games.

Just because he won in Boston does not mean he will be part of the 3-man Kenyan team. Four other Kenyans have run UNDER 2:07 this year in major competition. Yikes! This just shows you how dominate the Kenyans are in worldwide marathon competition. Interestingly enough, no Kenyan has yet won gold in the Olympic games even though it is their specialty.

Unfortunately for Cheruiyot and track and field and running in America, the foreign dominance in winning here has created a marketing nightmare. It is flat out difficult, nay impossible, to market world-class foreign athletes on American soil, no matter how much they win or how many records they set. Nobody in America seems to care.

I found the USA Today coverage of the Boston Marathon buried on page 7 in the Sports Section Monday. There was frankly 6 pages of more interesting sports news to read than some foreigner winning the Boston Marathon again.

There are no major track meets on prime time television anymore, only the Olympics gets major coverage. The venues that used to draw thousands of fans now sit empty by comparison. There is little, if any, coverage. Big time sponsors run the other direction when meet directors come calling.

It happens because America cannot seem to produce runners anymore that are worth a crap. They just are not competitive and cannot win events like the Boston Marathon if their life depended upon it.

Do not blame the foreign runners who once were poverty stricken and then found a way to win in America and go back home like a new-found millionaire. The foreign runners were hungry. Making a living in America is easy. We do not seem to have any would be runners left who are hungry enough to train harder and smarter and beat the foreign runners.

We also do not seem to have a coach in America who can motivate our runners to get up off of dead center and do something spectacular. There is currently not a runner in America that can handle heavy marketing and promotion because there is no one out there that can deliver when it counts.

The fact that Americans think they cannot beat Kenyans is rubbish. They once thought that it was impossible to run a mile under 4 minutes too. Kenyans BELIEVE they can win; Americans do not think they can win. I just want to get up and slap some sense into our American runners and coaches.

We did not become the greatest nation in the world because we had our eye on second place, or because we wanted to make a big deal out of finishing in the Top 10 at Boston.

I really think this is not about raw talent. We must have at least a dozen talented runners among 300 million people. I think our lack of world-class American runners is more about a lack of desire and determination. The marketing problem is not going away, and the fans and sponsors are not going to come back big time until America produces American-born runners who can win against the best the world has to offer.

As a lifelong runner and one who enjoys running for running’s sake, I am distraught that our runners have become such colossal failures on the world scene.