Two views on the loop around Caton Moor: Deep Clough and Ward’s Stone (above), Haylot Farm and Roeburndale (below).
“building [the] soul as much as [the] strength”. He felt “there was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love running”. It is an appealing idea that only strong, soulful, loving people can become good runners, and that good runners become strong, soulful, loving people. McDougall names (p99) three individuals to support his case: Emil Zatopek, Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela. Emil Zatopek was, of course, a great runner, winning three gold medals at the 1952 Olympics. I am sure he was a great man, too. I wonder if all Olympics marathon winners were or are great people. Perhaps so, for you clearly need strong personalities to win Olympics marathons. I am not sure of the running credentials of Lincoln and Mandela, although they are certainly worthy people to have on your side. They are described by McDougall as being included in “the pantheon of dedicated runners”. Abraham Lincoln’s running record is lost in the mists of time but he was a wrestling 24/781/72%
champion, enshrined as an Outstanding American in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. Nelson Mandela did indeed enjoy long-distance running, although for 27 years he could run no distance at all, except on the spot. He said that running taught him that training counted more than intrinsic ability. He was also a keen boxer and was voted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame - but for knocking out apartheid, not really for his boxing. Who can possibly say whether Lincoln and Mandela’s status as great men is any way attributable to their running? Nobody - but I am prepared to give an opinion. No, it isn’t. Even so, it is certainly uplifting to feel, as I plod through the mud on a cold wet Sunday morning, that I am developing my soul, my spirit and my love and well as my fitness. Yes, the knee seems a little better. Thank you for asking. 1
This may be a misprint for ‘running scared’. knows?
Fifty Weeks Running (2011), Drakkar Press, Copyright © 2011 John Self
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