Chapter 296: I then do something I haven’t practiced.

 

Most days I stand on the starting line I look at other runners and immediately know where I will come and who will come first. Today is different. Bikes and Spikes 800m Masters handicap event.

 

Us Australians have a  tradition of handicap events. We love giving everybody an equal opportunity of winning. We are all mates in this together. And we trust our Government or the handicapper to look after the weak and needy. This Australian characteristic has helped us confront Corona. Trusting authority/handicapper and thinking of the slow runners/ needy.

 

Our most famous horse race, The Melbourne Cup, is a handicap race. Weights are carried in order to even up the field. Handicapping us runners with weights is theoretically possible but we are handicapped by distance. We don’t have less weight to carry or start before the others. Us slower runners have less distance to run. We all start at the same time. The backmarkers then attempt to mow us down  and pass the runners in front of them. If the handicapper has done a perfect job all the runners will finish together for a dramatic photo finish.

 

Our most famous yacht race, The Sydney Hobart yacht race, uses a different handicap system. Each boat is placed in a division. Each division contains boats of potentially similar speed. There are two winners.  The Line Honours Winner receives more publicity than the Overall Winner.

 

The 800m Master’s handicap race is a race with only one winner who is both the line honour winner and the overall winner. A race where I run less than 800m. Behind me are talented runners who will be inspired to run faster by attempting  to run past me.

 

I assume the crowd will support and barrack for the back marker as they try and mow down us front markers. It is dramatic to watch runners over tacking and passing other runners. More dramatic than seeing a front marker run away and lead for the whole race. 

 

I have to adjust mentally. Normally when I run the runner in front of me inspires me. I watch the rhythm of their legs and imagine a string connecting us. I aim to keep that string tight. Not let it go loose.

 

Today I need a different mindset. Today I will be a hunted hound running for my life. Avoiding these pesky hounds napping and barking at my heels.

 

To save energy and go for a big finish is not the way to go. Today I will have to start fast and try to hang on. I will be Herb Elliott. Destroying my competition with my self-confidence. My confidence will take away and diminish their confidence. There is only a finite amount of confidence on the oval and I am going to take it all.  

 

The coming rain overshadows and dominates the athletic carnival. The wind has arrived. The wind will slow down my competitors. They have another thing to worry about.

 

Volunteers help me find my starting spot. I peer towards the starter. He starts everybody at the same time. I start by myself. I am running  by myself against everybody else. Without looking much I can see runners on the other side of the oval. I must sprint to the end of the first lap. 

 

I know have to sprint down to the other end. Legs go faster. Legs go higher. Legs go longer. Go faster. Arms swing bigger. Bigger and bigger. Lungs breathe deeper. Bigger breathes. Bigger and deeper. The hare will speed away from these nasty hounds. The hounds are slow and old and hobbling. The hounds are losing touch.

 

I never look around. That will give them confidence. I am arrogant. I listen to the announcer. He knows my name. The sound is very clear. He tells me the back marker has passed a few people and is running fast. Faster than me. That looks like the finish line. I cross it.

 

I then do something I haven’t practiced. I accept a sash and the winner’s prize. When I arrived, I was amazed at how many volunteers spent so much time helping runners and cyclists. Now I am amazed at how so many of these volunteers congratulate me on winning. New Town Oval is full of people who  deserve a prize.

I am too happy to feel exhausted. Fancy winning. I breathe deeply. I rest my hands on my legs.  I shake hands with the other guys. I love them all. They have all inspired me to run fast. They have all done that by trying to run faster than me.

Chapter 295: Christmas Day begins...

 

Christmas Day in Tasmania in the year 2020 is a day my family celebrate being a family. On Christmas Day my family gets together and celebrates each other.

 

Christmas Day began on Christmas Eve. Driving with my grandkids through barren, deserted suburbs looking for a few isolated, subdued and embarrassed Christmas lights.  The proud house owners all said they were doing it for the kids. Our kids were quiet, stunned, stared and said little.

 

Christmas Day continued with the Montrose parkrun. We joined a large communal group of several hundred runners. Most of us dressed in Christmas shirts or hats; ran as normal and then departed.

And then the day became all  about presents.  My grandchildren received more presents than they could keep track of.  

 

Us adults gave and received one present. We didn’t  know who our present was coming from or going to. It was a secret. Somebody called this Secret Santa.

 

Because Secret Santa is not an established custom, in its infant stage, we needed rules. Our rules were every adult puts a present under the tree. Every adult receives a present. When the adult receives a present, they also have to nominate their word of the year and receive a challenge.

 

The challenges people randomly received were:

Tell everybody about the year you had a memorable Christmas. When? Why? What?

Tell everybody something you have always wanted to receive and never have?

Tell everybody a Christmas memory you have never ever told anybody.

What do you normally say when you receive a present you loathe?

What is the most memorable Christmas present you have ever received? And the story behind it.

Talk about a memorable Christmas present you gave.

Tell everybody about a time at Christmas you lied.

Talk about a Christmas food you’d love to eat all year.

Talk about a Christmas food you avoid. A food that means no thanks I’m full.

 

The challenges are given out randomly. Some result in stunned silence. Some result in voluminous chatter, joyous laughter and everybody adding to the story.

 

A popular challenge is talk about a memorable year. Why was it memorable? What happened? Everybody thought of a different year. For me a memorable year was my first Christmas in South Africa. I was a wandering Aussie backpacker a long way from home. I found friendship and fellowship in unexpected places with unlikely company. 

 

The Christmas memory I have never ever told anybody is the year I went into a pharmacy. I wandered the aisles and filled a basket with multiple presents.  I left the pharmacy with every single Christmas present I needed. Job done in about ten minutes.

 

The most memorable Christmas present I received was more than 50 years ago. I received a much longed for cricket bat. I polished and slept with the bat. I proudly took it to a school holiday program. A much bigger kid looked at my bat. He said: “That looks good. Can I use it.”

He took his stance. A ball was bowled. He raised my bat, belted the ball and gave me back a broken and useless bat. My thesaurus doesn’t adequately describe my disappointment and devastation. 

 

One challenge that initially resulted in silence was the one about lies. Everybody said: You can’t ask that. Nobody said a thing. Later that day everybody came and told me of the time they lied.

 

My only lie was the year when I said: When  I get older I’ll  get dressed up as Father Christmas. That looks like fun.

The truth is I am now older and I’m not going to do it. Wearing a hot red suit and fake beard doesn’t look like fun.

Talk about Christmas food confirms that I am the only person alive who likes, enjoys or even eats plum pudding. In the future if I want  to eat plum pudding I’ll have to buy my own, if they still sell it, and eat the lot.

 

Interspersed between adults attempting to avoid the spotlight we have grandkids doing the exact opposite. Aiming for the spotlight and centre stage. They sing and dance a few items. For them it is a case of: Do I have too. Can I do it again.

 

The nominations for word of the year were: unprecedented, scrolling, social isolation, quarantine, zoom, mask, PPE, new normal, hand sanitiser, year like no other.

 

But for me I will remember 2020 for one word. The name that originally meant pure. The word that in 2020 changed its meaning. The name that people lovingly named their sensitive, caring, empathic daughters. The word that many unfortunate and unlucky people have been stuck with: Karen.

Chapter 294: Good coaching polishes...

 

Cerutty told Elliott to be contemptuous of pain and thrust against it. There was no pat training formula, no timetable routine. Cerutty aimed to fashion out of the raw Elliott a resilient, superbly conditioned free spirit who would discipline himself instinctively and soar above the common herd of racers by virtue of superior strength and will power. Races would be won by instinct, not strategy.

It needed a man of Cerutty's fiery, evangelical nature to tap Elliott's enormous resources and bring them to the surface.

 

Elliot: You get bloody sick of training but that's the time when you stick to it. That's when one runner proves himself better than the others. Anyone can do it when he's enthusiastic. It's when you stick to it that you show you're the superior man. But once you start running it's O.K. You get a sensation of strain in your muscles and sweat on your brow. It's a manly pleasure. The pain is something real, especially now when you're not quite fit. Three or four times a week it hurts so much that you're dying to stop. Your muscles are screaming but you keep going. It's a matter of will power.

 

Elliot: I don't try to hate them. It just happens that way. But the person you should really hate is yourself. It's you that you've got to hurt. It's you who's got to take the punishment.

 

Elliot: Why run at all? I guess it's a way of expressing myself by going through pain. I aim to keep myself fit and to prove I'm the better man. Doesn't everyone want to show he's better than the next bloke at something?

 

Elliot: The main thing about Perce is that he coaches your spirit. This is the key to championship running. The body itself may need only two months' training to get fit; the rest of the time you're building up your spirit—call it guts, or some inner force—so that it will go to work for you in a race without your even thinking about it.

 

Elliot: He is more impetuous and excitable than I am. Percy talks all the time. He nearly drives us crazy, saying the same things over and over until you get damned sick of it. But when he's not here we miss the old beggar. I could train and run on my own but I like to have him around to talk things over.

 

Elliot: Percy claims a lot more than he should get credit for. He makes it sound as if you'd be a drunkard and no good as a runner if it weren't for him. It sometimes gets your back up and you feel like putting him in his place. But, all in all, he's a wonderful bloke.

 

Elliot: I like to vary my training venues day by day, running on a golf course one day, the next day in a park, then on a racecourse, up and down the hills flanking the Shrine in Melbourne, along the Yarra River and even over cow paddocks. The change of scenery, the music of the birds and the sight of grazing cattle and sheep is soul-freeing and makes a training session real joy.  

 

What do Elliott and Cerutty tell me.

 

A good relationship with a good coach will help me run faster. It is unlikely that will happen because a good coach would quickly realise there are some things you can’t polish.

For me running is all about getting to know yourself and finding out what you are capable of.

Physical ability is related to emotional, mental and social health.

Run free. Unscripted. Vary training. Vary speed. Vary where I run. Cross country. Fartlek. Intervals on the track.

Base training. Weights. To add power to upper body.

Running up hills to build up strength. 

When races  start to appear. Sprints. Speed work.

The harder I train the easier I will race.

Eat healthy.

Rest hard and relax hard. Train my mind.

Racing is a test of training.

 

 

Chapter 293: To become the best runner in the world I galloped over sand-hills, splashed through the surf or frolicked in the beautiful Botanical Gardens.

My time surfing has resulted in some quotes attributed to Herb Elliot. I have copied and pasted some of these quotes. They are interesting.

 

Post Cambridge Herb Elliott lived and worked in Perth. He was and still is very successful in business.

 

Elliott: There was no reason for me to continue running. There was no money in it, I had a family, I wasn’t a wealthy fellow so I needed to go out and get a job.

 

He attributes his ability to adjust to working in business to the self-belief installed in him by Cerutty.

 

Elliott: When I first met Cerutty at school, he said ‘what you’re doing is totally trivial, you’re going round and round in circles and coming back to where you started. Why would you put aside a large portion of your life for the next four years for such a trivial achievement?’

And I said ‘I’m not sure’. And he said ‘I’ll tell you why. Because you’ve got an aptitude (for running), and if you can use that aptitude to the fullest, you’ll grow into a better man’.

 

Elliott: I’d been brought up a Catholic at Aquinas College in Perth and you’re constantly confronted by this idea of being a better person. So that appealed to me. So my motivation was very pure. I wanted to be a better human being. That was my number one thing.

A point being, at training you’d be exhausted and you still had a few miles to run but you knew that was a moment of weakness challenging you. So, if you were going to grow, your motivation had to be more than just winning or getting money.

 

Elliott (recently): I know some of the great AFL coaches who have had success and they concentrate on the guys being better men and, therefore, ultimately better footballers rather than just being better footballers.

 

They develop players first as men, allowing what they learn to help them with their particular sport. They’re the ones who get the best results, not the ones who hammer the idea of just trying to win.

 

Elliot: It was just one of those peculiar tricks of fate that I met Percy and certainly his contribution to my development as a champion athlete was an invaluable and integral part of it. It wouldn’t have happened without him.

Elliot: From the first time I met Percy, he excited me as a person. I’m not sure whether it was a blending of personalities or minds, but the way he spoke appealed to me. I could feel it stir ambitions in me that must have been already there somewhere.

Elliot: I always respected, listened to, learned from and loved Percy.

Elliot: It was demanding, incredibly so. But also inspirational, natural and beautiful.

Elliot: He was never terribly interested in what I was doing in my training. He was more interested in my state of mind.

 

The Australian press built a rivalry between Merv Lincoln and Herb Elliot, portraying it as a feud between coaches Cerutty and Stampfl. Elliott’s training contrasted with Lincoln’s track-based and closely timed sessions.

 

Elliott: I had a genuine sympathy for Merv. While he was plodding his way through monotonous training sessions, I was galloping over sand-hills…and splashing through the surf, or frolicking in the beautiful Botanical Gardens.

 

Cerutty clearly filled a need in Elliott's life.

 

Mrs Elliott: We put Herb in Percy's hands with confidence. That confidence has been well and truly repaid a million times over. He gave Herb an awful lot more than just making him stronger. He puts great stress on character. His standards for a man are very high. Oh, we have had some terrific arguments with him, but he's done the world for Herb.

Chapter 292: He didn’t race to win and always won.

Wednesday night on the Domain I line up for the 1500m. That means I will write about Herb Elliot. Despite what my grandkids think I do not remember Elliott racing. But modern technology helps  me to write the following.

 

 

The great Herb Elliott.  He didn’t race to win and always won.

 

1938: Herbert James Elliott born in Perth.

 

He went to Aquinas College. He played the piano, won prizes in debating and was named school captain. He rowed and played football (broke his nose) and ran. He wrote to John Landy.

 

Landy replies: Run for the sake of running, never just to run against the clock or to set out to break a record.

 

1955: Percy Cerutty sees Elliott win a mile race in Perth in 4:22.

Cerutty tells Elliot:  There’s not a shadow of doubt that within two years you will run a mile in four minutes.

 

1956: Elliott goes to Melbourne Olympics with his parents.  Elliott sees Kuts win the 10 and 5 kays at the Melbourne Olympics.

Elliott: The aggressive way in which Kuts dealt with Gordon Pirie in the 10,000 affected me tremendously.

 

1956: The Elliotts meet up with Cerutty. His parents approve of Herb joining Percy Cerutty’s training camp at Portsea.  They thought he would be a good mentor for Herb. 

 

1958: Sets the world mile record. 3:54. Same month sets the world 1500m record 3:36.

1958: Cardiff Commonwealth Games. Won the 880 yards and the mile.

 

1959: Married Anne Dudley. They have six children.

 

1960: Rome Olympics. His training was disrupted by his travels around the world and by getting married.

 

1960: Despite his punctured preparation his coach, Percy Cerutty, demanded he stick to their successful strategy of going to the front after two laps.

Elliott: Percy said ‘these guys will expect you to go at halfway. You’ve got to do that. Once they see you doing that you’ll break them they’ll think, oh no, we’ll never beat him’ and they’ll be racing for second place.

 

But everybody in the race had a plan.

 

The nine runners had all run sub four minute miles. They took off at speed. Frenchman Michel Bernard in front.

 

Elliott: The first two laps were led by a fellow in a light blue singlet. I had no idea who he was but it turned out to be Bernard. He set a very, very fast pace.

 

Then, with 600m to go, Elliott takes the lead. And he ran. Fast and faster.  He never looked back. This is seen as haughty arrogance and self-confidence. He sees a white towel (waved by Cerutty) being waved and sprints the last 200m. He wins by 30m.  New world record.

 

Elliott: You get to that point where your legs are screaming with lactic acid and your lungs are burning and you just put up with it. That’s the thing. Your training is so important. Not so much the strength and the muscle training … it’s training your mind. And if you haven’t developed mental toughness through all your training then you can’t rely on it in the race. But if you’ve done it every time in your training then you can rely on it in the race.

 

1960: Elliott does exactly what he saw Kuts do in 1956. He saw Kuts decimate the field and win contemptuously. What Elliott saw inspired him to take running serious.

 

As Elliott leaves the stadium a man, he doesn’t recognise, says to him:  It was a wonderful run.

The man was Vladimir Kuts.

 

During the Rome Olympics Elliott appears haughty and contemptuous of his rivals. He doesn’t even know the name of the guy leading the race. He won every mile he raced in but he was not paranoid or concerned about beating the other runners. He always won and didn’t race to win.

 

Its hypothetical but if Elliott had of been beaten in the mile he would have behaved very well towards the winner. He would not have been bad tempered or thrown his racquet. He might even have continued running a bit longer.

 

1960: Studies at University of Cambridge. He ran for Cambridge University. He very nearly gets defeated in a mile race. He then avoids the mile and sticks to cross country events.  He doesn’t win most of his cross country events but he impresses other runners with his physique, running style, ability to focus and sportsmanship behaviour. 

 

1961: Retires from international athletics. International running career from 1957-1961.  Never lost a race at 1500m or one mile. Runs a sub 4-minute mile 17 times.  44 consecutive victories in international athletics.

 

1962: Elliott is the world record holder and reigning Olympic Gold medallist. He retires at the age of 24 from athletics.