Cooks Gardens in Wanganui

Most of my coaching has involved the sport of swimming. However the first fifteen years were spent coaching athletics. Following the instructions of Head Coach Arch Jelley, I supervised Alison’s track preparation. We were living in the UK. Every week Arch would send me Alison’s training. My job was to time her track workouts and report back to Arch with her progress.

They were great years. Alison ran in National Championships, Commonwealth Games and World Championships. Through Alison’s running I got to meet other great runners like John Walker, Dick Quax and Rod Dixon.

An aspect of the running of all four athletes was the contrast between their gentle aerobic runs and their track workouts. I’ve been on a thousand runs with Alison. We would chat away as the miles went by. Not that she would run slowly. Her regular eight mile (13 kilometres) hilly morning run in Scotland was usually completed in about 48 minutes. I’ve also run with John Walker through the industrial English northern city of Gateshead and around the exclusive golf course at the Selsdon Park Hotel on the outskirts of London. I’ve run with Dick Quax around Windsor Great Park and with Rod Dixon through forests on the outskirts of Munich in Germany.

But the contrast between their easy runs and their track work or racing was astounding. A transformation takes place that is beyond understanding. I recently went to watch the World Master’s Athletic Championships at the track in West Auckland. I was especially impressed with a Swedish woman who won the 30-35 age group 1500 meters. “Wow”, my brain said, “that’s really fast.” It was only when she finished I realised Alison used to run the same distance 30 seconds faster. Perhaps, thirty years ago, I should have shown her more respect.

Dick Quax once asked me to time and “easy” set of 10×400 with an easy 400 jog between. He was the world 5000 metre record holder at the time. So I guess I should have expected to be impressed. But wow, I was more than that. As he strode through 400 after 400 in 58 seconds it dawned on me. These guys inhabit a different space.

Or just try standing close to the edge of the track at the 200 metre mark when John Walker began to make his run for home. The power was quite simply beyond belief. The gentle Labrador that had run with me through the Gateshead cemetery this morning was a Cheetah in full flight, with its prey in sight. After winning a mile race John once asked me, “What did you think?” Oh my God I thought the first man to break 3.50 for a mile has just won an international race in 3.54 and he wants to know what I think. I struggled to find something to say; something sensible but not too complimentary. I failed.

Dixon, Walker and Quax – all three were four minute milers, all three I have watched race and run their gentle morning workouts. I do have some appreciation of the class it takes run a mile in under four minutes. I read the other day that more people have climbed Mt. Everest than have run a four minute mile. I can believe that. Everest might be difficult, but a four minute mile, that’s really tough and there is no Sherpa to push you through the last 400 metres.

With that experience you can imagine how impressed I was to read the following report on the Athletics New Zealand website. Dixon, Walker, Quax and an eighteen year old from Tauranga, called Sam Tanner, now have something in common. All four have run a mile in less than four minutes.

“One highlight” – can you believe that understatement? Eighteen years old, been training seriously for two years and a four minute miler – that’s a highlight all right; a highlight beyond belief. Congratulations Sam Tanner. What a wonderful achievement.

I was delighted to read about Tanner’s run. And I was pleased to read that his coach was a 2.13 marathon runner. With that background I am sure Tanner will be guided along a path other great New Zealand runners have travelled before. And Tanner also seems to have the assistance of a perfect role-model, Nick Willis. I read Tanner’s school mates call him “the Kenyan”. That just might be truer than any of them ever guessed.

Already Tanner has added to the story of amazing running that has taken place at Cooks Gardens in Wanganui; a history that began long before the all-weather track, shown in the title photograph, was installed. I am sure other milestones (excuse the pun) will follow. Congratulations again. As Mohammed Ali is quoted as saying, “You done splendid.”