Having run at least one marathon every year since 1976, ex AW: Staff member Steve Smith can claim to be one of Britain’s most experienced marathoners, and below he gives his thoughts on half a century of marathons.
In 1976, shortly after leaving school, I made my marathon debut at Harlow. That summer I did training runs with my Cambridge Harrier clubmate Barry Watson, who had surprisingly won the British Olympic Marathon Trials in Rotherham, beating Olympic favorite Ian Thomson. Watson then ran for Britain in Montreal and led runners off the track.
European and Commonwealth champion Thompson missed selection and I remembered that Thompson had won Harlow in 1973 as a complete unknown running the then world marathon record of 2:12:40.
I was lucky enough to interview Thompsonwho set a European record of 2:09:12 in his second game as my last draw before retiring. AW:.
It was Thompson’s and Watson’s runs that inspired me to want to try the marathon. I still ride them, albeit with little success, and my competitive peak was the British Masters title in 2002.
My debut was naturally a little slower than Thomson’s; At 18 (technically too young by AAA rules) and I ran a time of 2:53, which would now be considered a reasonable start, but at the time I wasn’t even in the top half of the field.
Despite being one of the best marathons in Britain, it was the Commonwealth Trial in 1973, but only 200 took part. Back then, only experienced club runners ran 26.2 miles. There were no fun runners, no fitness runners, no joggers, no charity runners, and very few senior runners, as most became officials when they hit their 40s. The masters competition was low level, but there were prizes for first over 40 and over 50.
Women also did not run a marathon. There was only one in my race that year. Moreover, there has never been a televised major city marathon, and only major championship marathons have ever appeared on television.
The perceived wisdom at the time was that runners probably only ran five or six good marathons, and without an event like Boston in the UK, runners retired early, which is why I think I’m the first Brit to go 50 consecutive years, having previously run the remaining six London Marathons.
This year’s London will be my 51stSt marathon season and I ran all the 1983 London Marathon bars where I ran other marathons.
London is now my only ride over 26.2 miles, but I ran Brighton in 2019.
My marathon references also include writing about London’s elites as a journalist for over 30 years. There was a time when I could finish a race and still make it to the post-race press conferences.
I’ve also coached someone in the British Senior International Vest and coached many athletes to age group wins in the London Marathon, and I was previously Coaching Editor at Runner’s World, taking over the marathon timing from the great Bruce Tallow.
Here, I offer five lessons—one for each marathon decade—I’ve learned about running 26.2 miles since 1976.
1 Targets
When the going gets tough, and when you reach the second half of the race, it helps to have a realistic goal that excites and motivates you, but it should be one that is achievable based on past races, longest training runs, and half marathon results. It’s no good having a target that’s clearly impossible when you’re running 10km.
I was fortunate in my first marathon to be in good enough shape to realistically challenge sub-triple, which was then considered a good but not exceptional target for a club runner.
At the time, there were almost no half marathons, with five, 10 miles and 20 miles being the most common. Some of my 10-mile runs I had hoped for a time around 2:40, but the energy ran out by 20 miles on my young untrained legs, and with the help of a course map and a hand-held stopwatch (no Garmins or even Casios in the mid-70s), I did enough to hit my minimum goal.
After that my motivation was to run under 2:30, which I did in 1981, and once I achieved that my goal changed to a slower time, but I still thought I could get sub-three by 61.
2 Keating
Half a century ago there were no runners in British marathons. During the 1990s and 2000s I was an official three-hour runner in London. Even though I haven’t owned a vest in 20 years, I still get asked if I walk. I would obviously need a bike to walk the sub three now.
However, they are a big help now. They are usually very visible and in a few starts and run at a steady pace and act as a boost for targets that beat them, which is the time they could have comfortably achieved if they hadn’t hit.
Although most runners have to do without a pacemaker, so have to make their own decisions.
Although it can be tempting to buy time in the first half. Ignore it.
I think the key to a good marathon is getting to the halfway point feeling like you have something at hand that you’re not dependent on. The longer you feel relaxed, the easier the second half will be.
3 Aging gracefully
My first marathon was in 1976 and my fastest was in 1981, so I’ve effectively slowed down by 45 years.
Although I could still break three hours in 2017, and when I was the first in over 40 years to break three times, health problems, injuries and age soon took their toll.
The rule of thumb is that you usually peak in your mid-to-late 20s, you consolidate, and then every year you gradually slow down and then deteriorate at a greater rate as you approach 70, which is sort of illustrated by my five year bests.
U20: 2:41:35 (1977)
20-24: 2:29:43 (1981)
25-29: 2:35:02 (1985)
30-34: 2:38:15 (1988)
35:39 2:44:21 (1994)
40-44. 2:42:10 (2003)
45-49. 2:43:53 (2006)
50-54. 2:43:40 (2008)
55-59. 2:56:16 (2017)
60-64. 3:09:25 (2019)
65-69. 3:37:11 (2023)
With consistent, smart and refined training and a certain amount of natural talent, you can sometimes cheat age.
In recent weeks John Wright66, and: Claire Elms62 have set records in non-marathon distances and there have been some amazing marathon figures as well.
Giuseppe Damato, 90, ran 4:30:30 in the last Milan marathon and currently has a book called: Dare to dream on British runner Mike Sheridan, who ran 2:59:13 at the age of 73.
At the other end of the master age scale, the three youngest marathon bests in M35 (Eliud Kipchoge 2:01:09), M40 (Kenenisa Bekele 2:04:19) and M45 Bernard Lagat (2:14:23) are all former 5000m world champions.
4 Technology
Obviously, a lot has changed technologically in 50 years.
The shoes of 1976 weren’t all that different from plimsolls, very light, with minimal cushioning and a mile away from the built-in carbon shoes of 2026.
I can now recall even wearing a pair of waffle shoes in a marathon in 1979 that were fine for maybe five miles on the golf course, but certainly not 26.2 miles on the road and deservedly injured my feet.
In the 1970s, there were no gels, caffeine chews, or isotonic or beetroot drinks.
For the first London Marathon (where I set my PB), I had no breakfast, just a cup of tea and maybe a few small glasses of water during the race. Since it was cold and frosty, I walked away from it.
Diet wise there was some knowledge and I tried the carb depletion diet for my 1976 run and early marathons but never found it helped. Although I did notice that my ability to pace increased when gels became popular in the 2000s and my best runs for age (2:43, 50) were due to me eating the right diet before the race and during the event.
5 Focusing on London
As I live about 400m from both London Marathon starts and have done for over 60 years, London has been all my focus in recent marathons. From reduced training, I can handle one marathon a year and no more.
Long gone are the days when I could run a sub in Boston on Monday and London on Sunday.
While my gym is a mile away, I still probably run part of the course every day and I’m lucky enough to have the world’s largest marathon on my doorstep.
As the clocks were ticking on the eve of the first London 1981, I woke up just 45 minutes before the start of the race.
This is my 43th London in a row (many times in championship qualifiers or good for age) I know the course backwards and have a pretty set routine.
There are never enough toilets and you often seem to spend ages queuing, going and then deciding you still have to go again and going straight back into the queue.
If it’s not too hot, don’t drink at every water station, as having too much water is more dangerous than too little and trying to get a drink every now and then drains energy as you make your way through the masses. There was definitely a lot more space when I was faster, although wave starts spread the field out. Of course, there was no such thing as chip times in the early marathons.
It’s a multi-lane world record course, so it’s obviously fast (with a quick descent of about 5km), but if London were to design a world record course from scratch, they’d probably change a few things.
There are quite a few inclines (with one extra hill in Woolwich at the red start) lots of sharp turns and a few traffic jams, but the course has a lot of special parts and the crowds can be incredible if you start to struggle in the last 10km.
The last few miles along the River Thames and past Big Ben and then Buckingham Palace is undoubtedly one of the greatest in the world.
Having run in London for 60 years of my life, I really appreciate that on this special day, the roads are closed to runners and thousands of people cheer you on, while the other 364 days they ignore you.
