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by Brian Mayor
Brian is the Treasurer of the New York Flyers and has been wanting to be a marathon runner since 1974. |
A Word from the Treasurer
Brian Mayor
A Lifelong Marathon Wannabe
When I talked to Brian about this article, he wanted to know if it
should be about "treasurer stuff", you know — balances, income, receivables, budget projections — interesting stuff like that  .
After a few microseconds of thought, I suggested maybe something about running would be better. It turns out although Brian has been running for longer than many of us,
he has yet to toe the starting line of a marathon. What follows are his thoughts on that.
— The Editor
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he days are getting cooler, the nights are longer, and for many runners this is the focal point of the year — marathon season. Thousands of runners — and hundreds of Flyers — have put in countless hours of effort and unfathomable numbers of miles to be ready for their big day, whether it be NYC, DC or Chicago, and I admire your effort and dedication. As you will see, it is far beyond anything I felt I could accomplish.
I have a long history with the marathon, although that does not include actually running one. Living and training in the home of one of the world’s biggest and most famous marathons, it is inevitable that the race would somehow get a hold on me. If nothing else, Jenny (my wife) and I had our first date when she was in town to watch the New York City Marathon.
I first decided I wanted to be a marathon runner in England in 1974. The only people who ran marathons then (as far as I could tell) were some strange species of obsessives who ran in Olympic Games. Back then the marathon didn’t have its own day in the schedule, but took place at the same time as the final day of track and field finals. The live TV coverage (on the BBC, at least) would cut back to the marathon for a few minutes between track finals. British readers of a certain age might remember a TV game show called ‘It’s A Knockout’, a bit like ‘Wipeout’ today from what I’ve seen in trailers, which featured an event called the ‘marathon’, not because it was an endurance event, but because it was something they kept coming back to.
Anyway, back to my point: in the 1974 Commonwealth Games (held in New Zealand), the marathon was won by an Englishman, Ian Thompson, which captured my imagination. That’s when I decided I wanted to be a marathon runner. There were a few problems with that, however. To name just a few: there weren’t many marathons around back then; I was only eight years old; and, as I found out over the next few years, I was not a gifted runner. (Not false modesty — I only got better in my early twenties after a lot of hard work beginning in my late teens).
In 1981, I was still a sedentary teenager when the first London Marathon took place. This was a huge event — around 8000 runners! Ordinary joggers took part as well as club athletes and internationals. TV broadcast the whole race, focusing on fun runners as well as the elites. Nothing like it had been seen before in the UK, and it triggered the UK version of the marathon boom. Of course, it was directly influenced by New York, where former British international runner Chris Brasher had watched the New York race and been inspired to try something similar in London. I still fancied the idea of running it myself, but was probably relieved when I found out there was a minimum age of 18, so I didn’t have to do anything yet.
I did begin running a year or so later, first running cross country races for my school and then joining a local club. The club runners were mostly very serious runners — the kind who would have been given scholarships to run at college level if they had been in the US, but such a system does not exist in the UK. Good runners join and compete for clubs, no matter what their background. Not only was I running for a club with many serious runners, but there was also a local marathon. Inspired by the reaction to the first London Marathon and the 1981 opening of the world’s then-longest suspension bridge about 20 miles away, some people in my home town decided to organize a point-to-point marathon from Hull on the north bank of the River Humber to Grimsby on the south. The finish line was less than a mile up the road from my house so I always made a point of going to watch. By the time I joined the local club and began running seriously the race had been established for three or four years, but I put off doing it myself for a few years. I had noticed that at that time, all the best marathon runners had been successful 5 and 10km runners and stepped up to the marathon when they were around 29 years old. That sounded like a good idea to me, and I was also a bit daunted by the fact that most of the people I knew (also generally thirtysomethings to my late teens) seemed to be running 100 miles per week and aiming for around 2:30 for the marathon. I think the best time locally was around 2:22. As well as my club mates, I was also inspired around this time by Welshman Steve Jones’ achievements in winning London and Chicago in record and near-record times in the mid-1980s.
The Humber Bridge Marathon eventually disappeared from the calendar, as did many UK marathons. I moved away to another city and another club, where the focus was on track and field for younger age groups, I was one of about four or five senior distance runners, and marathons were hardly heard of. I still made a point of watching marathons though: Olympic, World, Commonwealth and European championship marathons were always on TV, as was London and, on satellite/cable, New York and Boston. But over the years the impulse to actually run one faded.
By the time I moved to New York in 1999 I never even contemplated running a marathon any more. I had a pretty good 5k PR freshly under my belt and that, I felt, was my distance. I also had a fresh half marathon PR, but that had felt like the hardest slog imaginable, and in the grand scheme of things not all that impressive for a club runner. Whenever I crossed the finish line of a half marathon I could hardly summon the energy to find my bag, let alone run round the course again. When I joined the Flyers the number of us who did not run marathons on a regular basis must have been in the single digits. For my first few years as a Flyer I denied strenuously that I would ever run one, although I would always show up and cheer people on.
One morning, about three or four years ago, I woke with the idea in my head that maybe, just maybe, I would run New York. I even went so far as to take advantage of my nine NYRR races for the first time and enter it, although I realized soon after that I wasn’t going to be able to train enough, and deferred it. The following year my endurance training wasn’t going any better and I let my entry drop. I then found out that NYRR has a program whereby you can get a guaranteed entry if you achieve certain standards in half marathons, and decided that would be my target: if could run a half in under 1:30 then it would mean that it might be worthwhile to step up my training to see whether I could manage a full marathon. It sounds achievable, but I have to keep reminding myself that I haven’t got under 1:30 in twelve years, and counting! I watched the 18 mile warm-up race in the rain last year and felt like I wanted to be out there. (18 miles is further than I have ever run in my life). This year has been one of my worst ever for stubborn injuries, and I have hardly run at all since last fall, so the half marathon is now next year’s target, and maybe the New York City Marathon in 2012 (fingers crossed…)
So I fully realize the effort and dedication you have all put in to be ready for this huge race, whether you are doing it for the first time or you are a veteran. I cannot imagine being able to sleep for the next week if I was running New York, whether for fear or excitement. I hope you all achieved your targets and enjoyed the day. GO FLYERS!