Kevin Forster - Olympian and world class marathon runner

Presentation at Helensburgh AC, Tuesday 29th October 2014

Thank you to Helensburgh AC for arranging this evening. It was inspirational and also a great learning experience to listen to someone who has achieved as much as Kevin Forster. I hadn't heard of him before the talk so, if you're like me, more information about him can be found here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Forster

Kevin is an accomplished speaker who delivered a polished performance that contained within it lessons learned from his own experiences underpinned by a wisdom enhanced with the perspective of time.

The Importance of Environment (Private sphere, Athletic sphere, Performance sphere)

1. He emphasised the importance of stability in the sphere of personal life. He was grateful for the understanding of his family and friends who were supportive of the demands of running up to 130 miles per week in training. He also said that having a secure job and a sport friendly employer had contributed to creating the right environment.

2. He extolled the benefits of belonging to a good running club (Gateshead Harriers). More about this below.

3. On a performance level, he described how he perhaps got the environment wrong in training for an overseas marathon. He moved his family to Boston for 6 weeks to train in warmer weather and afterwards he questioned if there had been any benefit to this over training in his familiar environment at home as he hadn't felt that it had enhanced his performance on race day.

Competition with other athletes

He was running in the 80s where even to win local races he would often have to beat a world class athlete. He was in no doubt that if it hadn't been for the core of quality athletes he had around him at his club and in the surrounding areas, he wouldn't have reached the heights that he did. Healthy competition was necessary for improvement.

Cross county underpins everything

For everyone out there starting to get fatigued with the mud and hills, take heart, it will give you the strength and endurance for great spring performances on the track and road. A fabulous grounding for everything else, according to Kevin.

Junior to Senior transition

From a coaching point of view he said this transition should be managed sensitively, particularly for juniors who had been performing at the top of their age groups. It is inevitable but manageable to work with their expectations that this will not happen straight away when they first run at senior level.

Fuelling and hydration 

Kevin never took on anything other than water in marathons. He also didn't have any special diet and in particular hadn't tried out carbohydrate loading which was in vogue at the time. If there was an underlying message from his presentation overall, it was don't over complicate things and this was reflected very well in his thoughts on food and drink. He said he tried to eat the right things but didn't over think it. His wife piped up at this point to say that the main thing to note re diet was that her grocery bills doubled when he was running!

Jo Pavey Analogy

He was asked by an audience member if he thought that if he hadn't had to work full time, did he think he would have been a better athlete. He answered with a very definite no and said that he would go as far as to say he would have done worse. It was good to have a job to focus on during the day and he thinks he wouldn't have done so well if he had had too much time to think about his training. He just went out and did it.

He used Jo Pavey to illustrate his point. She has been quoted recently as saying that one of the reasons that she thinks she is performing well is precisely because she is so busy. Being a full time mum means she doesn't obsess over her sessions or worry about running so much. It is almost like the "other" (for Jo, full time motherhood, for Kevin a full time job) is a crucial factor in ensuring they run to the best of their abilities.

A recent article in the guardian encapsulates Jo's philosophy to running at the age of 41 with all that has gone before and all that is yet to come. http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/oct/20/jo-pavey-athletics-gold-medal-donald-mcrae

To summarise I think Kevin's running philosophy could be summed up as: keep it simple and maintain perspective in your running in relation to the bigger picture of your life.

pian and world class marathon runner 

Presentation at Helensburgh AC, Tuesday 29th October 2014

Thank you to Helensburgh AC for arranging this evening. It was inspirational and also a great learning experience to listen to someone who has achieved as much as Kevin Forster. I hadn't heard of him before the talk so, if you're like me, more information about him can be found here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Forster

Kevin is an accomplished speaker who delivered a polished performance that contained within it lessons learned from his own experiences underpinned by a wisdom enhanced with the perspective of time.

The Importance of Environment (Private sphere, Athletic sphere, Performance sphere)

1. He emphasised the importance of stability in the sphere of personal life. He was grateful for the understanding of his family and friends who were supportive of the demands of running up to 130 miles per week in training. He also said that having a secure job and a sport friendly employer had contributed to creating the right environment.

2. He extolled the benefits of belonging to a good running club (Gateshead Harriers). More about this below.

3. On a performance level, he described how he perhaps got the environment wrong in training for an overseas marathon. He moved his family to Boston for 6 weeks to train in warmer weather and afterwards he questioned if there had been any benefit to this over training in his familiar environment at home as he hadn't felt that it had enhanced his performance on race day.

Competition with other athletes

He was running in the 80s where even to win local races he would often have to beat a world class athlete. He was in no doubt that if it hadn't been for the core of quality athletes he had around him at his club and in the surrounding areas, he wouldn't have reached the heights that he did. Healthy competition was necessary for improvement.

Cross county underpins everything

For everyone out there starting to get fatigued with the mud and hills, take heart, it will give you the strength and endurance for great spring performances on the track and road. A fabulous grounding for everything else, according to Kevin.

Junior to Senior transition

From a coaching point of view he said this transition should be managed sensitively, particularly for juniors who had been performing at the top of their age groups. It is inevitable but manageable to work with their expectations that this will not happen straight away when they first run at senior level.

Fuelling and hydration 

Kevin never took on anything other than water in marathons. He also didn't have any special diet and in particular hadn't tried out carbohydrate loading which was in vogue at the time. If there was an underlying message from his presentation overall, it was don't over complicate things and this was reflected very well in his thoughts on food and drink. He said he tried to eat the right things but didn't over think it. His wife piped up at this point to say that the main thing to note re diet was that her grocery bills doubled when he was running!

Jo Pavey Analogy

He was asked by an audience member if he thought that if he hadn't had to work full time, did he think he would have been a better athlete. He answered with a very definite no and said that he would go as far as to say he would have done worse. It was good to have a job to focus on during the day and he thinks he wouldn't have done so well if he had had too much time to think about his training. He just went out and did it.

He used Jo Pavey to illustrate his point. She has been quoted recently as saying that one of the reasons that she thinks she is performing well is precisely because she is so busy. Being a full time mum means she doesn't obsess over her sessions or worry about running so much. It is almost like the "other" (for Jo, full time motherhood, for Kevin a full time job) is a crucial factor in ensuring they run to the best of their abilities.

A recent article in the guardian encapsulates Jo's philosophy to running at the age of 41 with all that has gone before and all that is yet to come. http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/oct/20/jo-pavey-athletics-gold-medal-donald-mcrae

To summarise I think Kevin's running philosophy could be summed up as: keep it simple and maintain perspective in your running in relation to the bigger picture of your life.

Friday 12th September 2014

It was foggy this morning as I jogged round the perimeter of the park almost as if the weather itself had a symbolic part to play in the mist that hangs over Scotland's future. 

I don't know much about politics and I'm more of an observer and a listener in the debate that is ubiquitous in Scotland at present. Some people appear to be polarised at either end of the spectrum, resolute that the lens through which they see the world is definitive. My lens, like many others, is a bit of a kaleidoscope: turn it to paint one picture, twist it again and you see another.

But everyone needs a framework to try and make sense of the world. While this has absolutely no weight to contribute to any political argument, it has been literature I've found myself recalling in an attempt to fashion a framework of understanding. For instance words from Sunset Song about the main protagonist, Chris Guthrie, "two Chrisses there were that fought for her heart and tormented her", a reference to the psychological battle between the "English Chris" of her learning and studies and the "Scottish Chris" who grew up on the land. Sunset Song is an early twentieth century novel but one whose overarching themes are as as relevant today as they were then. The narrative structure itself is written in English but mimicks the cadences of Aberdeenshire Scots mirroring the conflict of the double life Chris lives in her head. A book that is about the end of one era and the dawn of another, a book that concludes that "nothing endured at all, nothing but the land", and that "...the folk who wrote and fought and were learned, teaching and saying and praying, they lasted but as a breath, a mist of fog in the hills, but the land was forever, it moved and changed below you, but was forever...", a particularly poignant sentiment as we contemplate what next for the land of the Scots.

The theme of the divided self permeates Scottish literature: Jekyll and Hyde, Robert Wringhim and his alter ego in Confessions of a Justified Sinner, the double life that Sandy Stranger feels she inhabits in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, a novel which echoes a feeling that many in Scotland today might share when Sandy considers that although she had lived through the same decade as many others in the same city, "when speaking to people whose childhood had been in Edinburgh, that there were other people's Edinburghs quite different from hers, and which she held only the names of districts and streets and monuments in common". 

Perhaps no matter what the outcome is next week, this is what it is to be Scottish: the ability to accommodate opposites, to think in one language and feel in another, this sense of the divided self that Hugh MacDiarmid dubbed the Caledonian antisyzygy, to contain within ourselves the nightingale's song:

Yet the nightingale remains supreme,

The nightingale whose thin high call

And that deep throb,

Which seems to come from different birds

In different places, find an emotion

And vibrate in the memory as the song

Of no other bird - not even the 

The love-note of the curlew - 

Can - do!

- Hugh MacDiarmid

Voyage of Recovery

This is the first in a series of posts about my ongoing recovery from an achilles injury.

Part One: Joy and Sorrow

13/04/2014

It has been 18 months since I last ran a marathon. I am absolutely thrilled to be here. In the interim period I have had to miss two marathons through illness and injury. This is the nature of the 26.2 mile monster: you train for months and make sacrifices that non runners just do not understand to line up and attempt to achieve peak performance in a set location on a set day at a set time in the story of your life. There is no room for deviating from your routine, no other race you can try again for next week or next month. This is it.

Today is extra special as I have gained entry to the championship start. Dedicated tents, small numbers, a VIP warm up where I run my strides alongside the warm up pace of E. Mutai. Conditions are perfect. I am surrounded by some of the best club athletes in the country. All the men have run sub 2:45 at a previous event and all the women sub 3:15 to earn their place to be here. I don't chat to anyone, trying to stay calm and in the zone that I have created in my head but inside my heart is dancing. I smile at the irony that I am just as excited about running about 29 miles today (including warm up and cool down) as I used to be about going out on a Saturday night. The delicious anticipation of it all.   

We are assembled behind the elite men, a respectable distance apart, but not so far that I can pinpoint my exact location later that day when I watch the race on the BBC iplayer. I bounce nervously up and down and it is only now that I feel the twinge that has been present all week in my achilles that I have explained away as just part of the taper. And then we're off.

I can't stop the smile that has spread across my face. It is a moment of complete joy to have arrived here, to be experiencing this again and to have the best possible chance of a good time under the circumstances (I am going for 2:54). But then I pull myself back mentally, I hear the words of my coach and coaches across the country: don't go off too fast.

Despite my privileged start position I am surprised at how busy the run is in the first 1-2 miles and this number increases as we merge with the other starts at 3 miles. I had forgotten how much mental effort was required at London just to make sure I don't fall over. The plus side of this is that the miles fly by in the early stages. As I cross the 5km mat, I am passed by my club mate Thomas who I know is going for a similar time and I am thoroughly cheered by seeing him. However I already know that something is not right. My right achilles is throbbing up the right hand side and I am hoping this is going to dissipate soon. All week I have run no further than 3 miles and I feel confident that a few miles more and I will have run this stiffness out.

At 6 miles, I am getting on target pace after slightly slower first few miles than planned. The pain is there and in fact it is worse. Doubts start to creep into my head about my ability to finish and I remember a conversation with my coach who said there is no shame in dropping out of a marathon. I remember agreeing with him at the time thinking that in the overall scheme of things, I am going to run many more marathons and hope to venture into ultras in the future too. I think how sensible I felt during this conversation thinking that I wouldn't sacrifice long term goals for short term glory. I had misjudged myself.

After 8 miles I started to think that I was doing myself permanent damage. I was still managing to stick to my splits and maintain form but I was in considerable pain which was had spread up into my calf. At 9 miles, disaster struck as I heard someone call my name and turned to see my brother Gerard in the crowd with a massive saltire flag waving encouragement. I had no idea he was going to be there until this moment and my heart began to somersault in waves of gratitude and love for his support and despair about letting him down. How much money had he spent flying down as a surprise?! 

At this point I determined to get to the halfway mark to at least say that I had run a half marathon. I trundled on and crossed the halfway mark around 1:27 ish which I couldn't quite believe. I was in a lot of pain but I was still running a good time. I was also feeling good within myself apart from the pain in my leg. Maybe it would still go away. Maybe Gerard being here was a sign that I should continue. I even prayed: please God tell me if I'm being stupid!!!

I decided to carry on. I knew my aunt Jacqueline and cousin Georgia were going to be at the 20 mile mark and I felt certain that Gerard would be between 13 and 20. In a previous London marathon he had managed to get to three separate points. My splits started to fall. I couldn't maintain form any more, this was getting serious.

Every mile I looked for Gerard but I couldn't see him. I realised I was going to have to pull out at 20 miles. I knew jacqueline would understand, I could collapse in a heap, she would call Gerard and I would save my leg. Mile 18, mile 19, no Gerard. I was walking when I could but the crowd wouldn't let me. Every time I staggered to the side to limp for a bit, the crowd would start clapping and yelling "come on 163, you can do it" and then break out into rapturous applause when I broken to a hobble as if I was none other than mo farah. This is the only way I got to 20.

I saw Jac and Georgia and ran over to them with tears in my eyes. "I'm injured, I can't go on". e

What are you talking about they yelled at me declaring the immortal words, "only 6 miles to go!!!" I couldn't believe it. I thought they would understand and allow me to walk off the course but I hadn't reckoned for the power of the supporters.

My thoughts switched back to Gerard. My baby brother would look after me. He would understand and look after me. As soon as I had been rejected by Jac, I had asked her where Gerard was and she said 21 or 22. I was overjoyed. Later I would find out she lied to make me keep going. I kept going walking at all the water stations as it was quite warm. The crowds were getting busier but still I couldn't see Gerard. Where is he? Mile 23 passed and then I remembered ALex, my friend who had promised to be at mile 24. I couldn't see him either. Between mile 24 and 25, there was alex! He nearly missed me but I had never been so glad to see anyone but him. We waved at each other and he screamed encouragement and pumped his fists at me. Some of his energy rejuvenated my spirit.

The end was near and although I was still in pain I was in a new head space. I knew I was going to finish. I wasn't going to get the time I wanted but I realised that by some miracle I could possibly get under 3:15 meaning I could come back and do this all again next year. I had retreated completely into myself, no longer aware of the crowds but focussing on form and getting there as quickly as I could. Just after mile 25 I heard Gerard again and felt his energy transmitting over to me. I even managed a fist pump any murray style which he reported back to the family that I was doing fine and there was nothing wrong with me. As I turned I to the finish, a scene I have played over and over in my head since, I was overcome with emotion. It had been so difficult but I had felt the love of my family and friends including those who I knew were tracking me from afar carry me home and I realised this was not just for me but for all of them too. Thank you to everyone, you all know who you are.

As I  ran down the home straight, the DJ was introducing a new song. I couldn't believe my luck when the village people came on and I crossed the line not with my arms in the air with joy but making the 'y' of YMCA.

3:13:20 on the clock. I was going to be able to return again next year.   

"When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight"

- Kahlil Gibran