Greenwich Park Temple of Running

The 37th London Marathon starts this Sunday from Blackheath and the top of the adjoining Greenwich Park, winding its way via Woolwich to run back through Greenwich next to the bottom of the park - all 40,000 of us. 

If you're looking for a bit of inspiration for your run look no further than a site in Greenwich Park itself. Other than a slight mound there's not much to see, but there is helpful sign to tell you what you're looking at: the site of what is now believed to be a Romano-Celtic temple, first discovered in 1902 and re-excavated by archaeologists for Channel 4's Time Team programme in 2000.

So what's all this got to do with running? Well for a start, there's a fragment of a statue found there which is believed to be the arm of the Goddess Diana. It is possible therefore that the temple was dedicated to Diana, the Goddess of the moon, woodlands and the hunt.  Sometimes referred to as 'fleet footed Diana' she was often described as running through the forest with her animals. 

Greenwich Diana fragment

Roman statute of Diana at Versailles
(Roman author Ovid also refers to her as the 'high skirted huntress' on account of her practical running attire)

Like many runners, Diana liked to bathe her feet after a hard day's exertion, a scene featuring in many paintings over the centuries including Titian's 'Diana and Actaeon' (above). In the Roman writer Ovid's version of this legend, this takes place at a pool  where 'the woodland goddess, weary from the hunt, would bathe her virgin limbs' accompanied by her nymphs. Actaeon, also out hunting in the woods, spies the naked Diana and in punishment she turns him into a stag who is chased and killed by his own hounds. Poor Actaeon doesn't realize at first that he has been transformed and he 'took off, marveling at how fast he was running. But when he saw his face and horns in a pool, he tried to say 'Oh no' but no words came' (Stanley Lombardo's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses)

I guess the lesson for runners here is if you find yourself running faster than expected, especially at the start of a marathon, you might regret it!

If  Diana fleet of foot is not enough to get you running, another object found in Greenwich Park  depicts a female figure holding a shield, which the information board states is likely to represent the Roman goddess Victory, probably better known to runners as her Greek equivalent - Nike.

Yes, Greenwich Park is a veritable temple of running and on Sunday thousands of devotees will be celebrating there.

Songs About Running (5): Jogging for Jesus

You know when you are out running and some one heckles you, and of course you don't lose a step, but you spend the next couple of miles thinking about the really smart reply you should have come out with?

Last week I had my first religious heckle, with some guy shouting out that I should look to save my soul rather than my body, and that I should stop jogging. Obviously that was plain rude, I run not jog, mate!

I wasn't going to hang around to debate the fine points of theology, but first I had an anti-religious wave of anger. I could have taken him down straight away with some thoughts on 'the problem of evil' - you know, if God is all-powerful how come He allows terrible things to happen like war, famine and pumped up guys shouting at passers by.

But then as I calmed down, I thought 'hold on, surely you can take care of your body AND your soul?'. If you're of a religious persuasion, shouldn't you make the best use of the legs and lungs that the Good Lord gave you? And in fact, some of the greatest runners have been righteous believers, I mean haven't you even seen Chariots of Fire?

And then I realized something else, that while he had included me in his line of fire and brimstone as I ran past  him, his rant had first been directed at a woman running towards him. So really it was the old old story of some shouty bloke hiding behind religion to tell women what to do with their bodies.

By the time I'd worked all this out, the miles had ticked by, it would have been much quicker if I'd simply retorted - you need to get Jogging for Jesus!

Jogging for Jesus is a fine slice of gospel funk by Leslie Harris and the House of Fire from 1980, a time when at the height of the 'jogging boom' in the USA there were many running-related songs. But unlike, say, the similarly themed The Jogger by Bobby Bare from the same period, this is actually a great piece of uplifting music. 

'Early one Sunday morning, Jesus came into my room

He woke me up saying, we're going to have a run

I jumped out of my bed, put on my jogging shoes,

My wife woke up saying, what are we going to do

I told her I'm jogging for Jesus

I am running with the Lord'

More Songs About Running:

Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush
Fugazi's Long Distance Runner
Stars of Track and Field are Beautiful People - Belle & Sebastian

The Jogger - Bobby Bare

Runnin' - Naughty Boy with Beyoncé

Record Sleeve Athletics:

Musique - Keep on Jumpin'

4-Play - Olympic Rap

Sergio Mendes - Olympia

Giorgo Moroder - Reach Out

Skids - Days in Europa
Three Degrees - The Runner

Blackbyrds - Action

The Associates - Affectionate Punch

Santana - Marathon

Joan Armatrading - Track Record & Roxy Music - Flesh and Blood

Carl Lewis

BBC Sporting Sounds Effects

Songs about Running (3): The Jogger by Bobby Bare

'The Jogger' by Bobby Bare was a novelty country hit in the US top thirty in 1983. It's an odd song to say the least - starting off with a homophobic trucker bemoaning having to share the road with a guy: 

'dressed like they do in baby blue, 

With shortie shorts and a headband too,

I yelled Sweetie I bet that you are the hit of the men's room locker... 

But I'm a runnin' late with an overload, 

So get your Adidas off a this road'.

But as the trucker accelerates the jogger gets faster and faster and leaves him behind. Well maybe that's because the jogger is apparently Jesus Christ himself:

'Then I see him joggin' up into the sky

And he yells hey thanks for the exercise

I hope that losin' this race was not too shockin'

Ya see my dad says heaven's no place to run

and I try to be an obedient son

So I have to come down to earth to do my joggin'

(lyrics by S. Silverstein)

Bizarre, but then this is the man who also sang the born again football anthem 'Drop Kick Me Jesus (Through The Goalposts Of Life)"

More Songs About Running:

Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush
Fugazi's Long Distance Runner
Stars of Track and Field are Beautiful People - Belle & Sebastian

Record Sleeve Athletics:

Musique - Keep on Jumpin'

4-Play - Olympic Rap

Sergio Mendes - Olympia

Giorgo Moroder - Reach Out

Skids - Days in Europa
Three Degrees - The Runner

Blackbyrds - Action

The Associates - Affectionate Punch

Santana - Marathon

Joan Armatrading - Track Record & Roxy Music - Flesh and Blood

Carl Lewis

BBC Sporting Sounds Effects

Bushy parkrun: a visit to the Mothership

I am approaching my 100th parkrun and surely no centenary is complete without a visit to the place where it all started - Bushy Park, near to Hampton Court in South West London. So last Saturday morning me and J. headed out there in the sunshine for my parkrun no.98.

It was in October 2004 that the first parkrun (then called Bushy Park Time Trial) took place in the park, since when the idea of a free, timed, Saturday morning 5k has spread around the world. A suitably biblical 13 running apostles took part in that first event, and today Bushy Park is something of a pilgrimage site for parkrunners. In fact more than 30,000 individual runners have run in parkrun there, with a regular weekly attendance in the region of 1,000.

The event starts off with the runners arranged along a very wide start-line, rather like at the National Cross Country Championships.After a first charge across the grass the crowd resolves into the usual race dimensions, spread out enough to not be a problem, but with the large numbers meaning runners of all abilities are guaranteed to have people around them for most of the race - a fact that probably lifts performance for many as they get dragged around by those slightly in front. It's a single lap of a flat course too, which certainly helps.

I had expected it to be quite an event, and it was, but I was taken aback by what a beautiful place Bushy Park is - how come I'd never been there before? I heard a talk this week about Green Exercise - the idea that taking exercise in a natural environment brings additional mental well-being benefits (more on this in a later post). Well having a red deer stag chilling out near the start/finish of the race certainly did it for me

Red deer unperturbed by finish funnel

The run starts near to the 17th century 'Diana Fountain' by the park's Hampton Court Road entrance - named not for the late Princess but for the Roman Goddess of the Hunt. Despite being known by that name, many historians now think that the statue actually depicts Arethusa. Either will do as a patron of runners, fleet-footed Diana or Arethusa the nymph who ran so fast from the river god Alpheus that her sweat turned her into a stream.

Many runners retire afterwards to the Pheasantry cafe in the park, good coffee in a gorgeous setting.

If you are travelling from further afield, Hampton Court, Hampton Wick and Teddington stations are all within 2 km of the start. If you're driving there are car parks in the park and if you get there early you should be able to get a spot - later they get very busy. Further details at Bushy parkrun.