Tony Kear
Marathon Man
After some 30 plus years of either running the grand
distance of nine-and-a-half yards six times in a row as an
off spinner, or the odd 22 yards as a first team number 11,
the prospect of attempting my first London Marathon
back in 2009 was, well, quite frankly, mad! As mayor of my
cricket club’s town of Usk it was, however, the perfect
excuse to raise money for charity and tick something off
the bucket list.
Training? What’s that? 21-mile training runs? Really? It’s only
26 x one-mile races I was told. Hmm. Well, I did it. A five-hour
slog saw me get round and four further attempts later,
I completed my goal of a sub four-hour ‘London’. Just!
3:59:59 to be exact.
I had my Steve Redgrave moment at the finish line when
collecting my medal. Never again, or so I thought! I blame
my daughter – I told my wife. Great idea to mentor a family
member half my age to complete 26.2 miles? Two places via
our wonderful local charity St David’s Hospice Care in
Newport helped focus the mind.
Training – urgh! Yes, Alice, we really do have to train and yes
that is a 21-mile run in the mad month of March. Plans sorted
– well, sort of. Getting a job in London was not on the cards
for Alice, and training separately certainly wasn’t. Neither
was injury. Two became one and almost zero. I’ve learnt it’s
easy to miss a training session, but the sad death of two
close cricketing friends to cancer who were cared for in their
last dignified days by St David’s gave me the reason to slog
the country lanes of Usk again, and raise valuable funds to
help the staff to continue their invaluable caring.
As a sportsman, the competitive nature never leaves you.
Niggles and colds or coughs are difficult to avoid in the
winter, so a PB was out of the question. Solution? Fancy
dress. What as though? A rhino, Superman, Wonder Woman,
a tutu? Those runners always appeared to have fun and got
so much encouragement by the crowd. Yup. Fancy dress,
but original it had to be, so the cunning plan was secretively
hatched to run 26.2 miles in my usual Saturday attire. Full
ECB ACO umpire’s kit. Mad? Yup! But it was aimed to raise
awareness among our local cricketing community.
Training wasn’t fun at all I must admit, but the cause was
paramount. Thankfully on the day the weather was cool and
at one point with hailstones falling I was glad of my ACO
jacket. It’s fair to say I had some funny looks starting in the
sub four-hour pen with athletically clad club runners, but it
didn’t matter. Two friends and their families were more
important. Running 10-minute miles was the plan, but I
stopped at every mile marker to take a photo ‘from the
inside’. I met family along the way, quipped with the crowd,
fielded the cricketing jokes and managed to persuade a
few marshalls to take some sightseeing photos of me at
the well-known London landmarks.
The time became irrelevant. Boy was it great fun. Sub
five hours was still achieved (remember that sporting
competitiveness?). My sixth London medal and just over
£3000 raised for the hospice, along with a few eyebrows
sitting in a pizza restaurant with the family, dressed in
sweat-ridden umpire gear! Thank you Paul Fearnley and
ECB ACO for sponsoring my kit and to all of my ACO
colleagues who donated.
And finally, to Mike and Mac – two wonderful friends gone
but never forgotten, especially running down the Mall.
‘Come on Kear!’ is stuck in my mind.
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