Running on Screen (9): London Spy

As noted here before, BBC thrillers now invariably feature a running sub plot, most recently Ann Marie-Duff as the triathlete ex-cop in From Darkness. Latest is London Spy which started this week. Danny Holt (played by Ben Whishaw) is the worse for wear after a night out clubbing in Vauxhall when he encounters Alex (Edward Holcroft) who is out for an early morning run over Lambeth Bridge. Danny is so taken by him that he even tries running himself in a bit to engineer a further meeting. Eventually they get together, love blossoms, but Alex's secret life as an MI6 spy gets him into trouble... OK spoiler alert, but if you haven't guessed from the start that he's going to be dead by the end of Episode One you haven't been paying attention. Great cast also includes Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling, looking forward to more. But I'm not sure there will be much more jogging on the South Bank.

South bank of the River Thames heading west towards Lambeth Bridge

Alex crosses Lambeth Bridge

Danny (Ben Whishaw) runs in search of love.... careful what you wish for

Previously in this series:

Run Lola Run and running Berlin

Walford Half Marathon (Eastenders)

Race Strategy in The (US) Office
Top of the Lake and The Fall
The Running Man (1987)
Muybridge's Runner, 1887

The Casual Vacancy

From Darkness

The Running Stitch - running as landscape embroidery? (Robert Macfarlane)

I am really enjoying Robert Macfarlane's 'The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot' (2012), with its evocative descriptions of walks and other journeys, as well as reflections on the act of following a path.

One thing he dwells upon is the relationship between writing and walking (and by implication running too), both of which trace lines and consist of a kind of up/down motion while moving forward:

'As the pen rises from the page between words, so the walker's feet rise and fall between paces, and as the deer continues to run as it bounds from the earth, and the dolphin continues to swim even as it leaps again and again from the sea, so writing and wayfaring are continuous activities, a running stitch, a persistence of the same seam or stream' (p.105 in the Penguin edition).

Of course he is not referring here to the kind of stitch you get in your side when running, but the running stitch in embroidery worked by the needle going in and out of the fabric just like my runner's feet going in and out of the mud in cross country this week. I am quite taken with the notion of running as a kind of landscape embroidery, stitching lines across the earth. On tarmac or track these mostly leave no trace, but in muddier conditions the running stitch is a visible line.

'I enjoy running, jumping, shouting'

In Fordham Park, New Cross there's a long steel plaque on the ground with some words on it from children at the local Childeric Primary School. The full text is 'I enjoy running, jumping, shouting and singing in an open space'. I do too! I've often run round or through that park. I may have sang in several nearby pubs, but not in the park itself, though I have certainly danced there in some of the wild ravey free festivals there in the 1990s.

When I first moved round here nearly 20 years ago there was actually a (now vanished) running track at the edge of the park. Anyone remember it?

Friday photos: Kent AC and other 1960s athletics

Following the photo I posted earlier this week of a group of Kent AC athletes from the 1950s, Roy Candy (who ran for the Lewisham-based club from 1960 to 1966) has been in touch and sent through some great photographs from the 1960s.

The group photo was taken at a training weekend at Timsbury Manor, Hampshire in 1965. It features members of Kent AC (back left row), Cambridge Harriers and London Olympiades, including for the latter the great Lilian Board and Mary Bignal Rand. Kent AC runners featured include Tina Ash (nee Darby), Nigel Porter, Cheryl Miller, Beverley Franklin (nee Panter), Dave Franklin, and Roy himself.

The next couple of pictures are from the Eton Manor to Southend Road Relay (c.1964) and show Kent AC runners Peter Brenchley, Roy Candy and John Oliver.

At Kent AC's Ladywell track in 1965, Lewisham Half-Mile Champs won by Roy Candy in 2m 1.4s from Mike Field and Richard Selby.

Another training weekend, possibly Camber Sands 1963. Among those featured are Avril Usher (later Avril Bowring), who ran for Kent AC at the time and later competed in the 1970 Commonwealth Games in the 400m.

As always, any more names or memories very welcome in comments.

Kent Athletic Club: 1950s Photo

One of the threads at this blog is the history of athletics in South East London, including my club the Lewisham-based Kent Athletic Club. Larry Garnham, who is researching Kent AC history, has found this club photo from the 1950s. He has provisionally identified many of the faces, but has quite a few unknowns.

If you recognise any of the faces, or have any memories of the club and its runners in this period (or at other times), do let us know in the comments and we will pass on to Larry.



Back Row: JIM SAMPSON (Thrower), PAT JAMES, PETER MACDONALD, UNKNOWN. RALPH DODKIN (400 hurdles).

Middle Row: UNKNOWN, NORMAN FOX, UNKNOWN, JOHN WHALL (Jumper), UNKNOWN, BRIAN LINES, LES WITTEY,  DENNIS MILLGATE (Sprinter), UNKNOWN, ALAN DARVILLE (High Jumper), JOHN COOKE, JIM TREGUNNO (Treasurer)

Front Row: UNKNOWN, UNKNOWN, ARTHUR WHIFFEN, TOM WALKER, FRED LANE (President), FRED TREGUNNO (Secretary), UNKNOWN, EDDIE BABBS, DEREK WALLS, UNKNOWN.

(Dennis Millgate, in the middle row, went on to be Secretary of Kent County Athletics Association from 1965-1974 and 1978 to 1985).

(John Whall, born 25/6/1934 is on the UK all-time lists for a 7:52 long jump at Erith in April 1960; he also won the triple jump at the 1959 AAA British Athletics Championships)

(Fred Lane features in another 1950s photo featured here previously, acting as a starter at Kent AC's Ladywell track, see: http://go-feet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/friday-photos-16-ladywell-running-track.html)

See previously on Kent AC history:

Herbert Cowper Scard (1865-1931): Lewisham and Blackheath Cross Country Champion

Notes on the history of Kent Athletics (1908) 


AJ Lock, 1920s Kent AC Miler 

Do the Right Thing: Spike Lee, Alicia Keys & New York City Marathon

I caught the New York City Marathon on TV yesterday, featuring film director Spike Lee as Grand Marshal cruising along in a fine 1969 Chrysler. 

Spike Lee in the week before the race with last year's winners Mary Keitany and Tatyana McFadden (who won again this year in women's and women's wheelchair races), Wilson Kipsang and Kurt Fearnley.

Among his many achievements, Spike Lee is responsible for what I and many others believe to be the greatest opening credits in movie history, as well as the finest fitness/boxing/dance routine in cinema: the first few minutes of 'Do the Right Thing' with Rosie Perez and Public Enemy's Fight the Power. Pure energy and joie de vivre, makes me want to go and run round a track as fast as I can.

Rosie Perez in Do the Right Thing

This year's NYC Marathon also featured Alicia Keys, who also of course wrote one of the four best songs about New York of the century so far and sang on one of the others (that would be her own 'Empire State of Mind, Part II' and Jay Z's 'Empire State of Mind' - the others being LCD Soundsystem's 'New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down' and SBTRKT 'New Dorp. New York' in my humble opinion). 

(from Alicia Keys on Instagram)

Alicia Keys previously ran a Marathon in Greece in 2007. In a blog describing her New York training this year, she says 'every morning, I get on my running swag, put the baby in the running stroller, and put on my headphones' and listen to audiobooks including Toni Morrison and Malcolm Gladwell.

She was running for her HIV charity Keep a Child Alive: 'This is what inspires me when my body begins to tire. My training is nothing compared to the challenging journey these families face every day. We may not be able to walk a mile in their shoes, but we can certainly run a mile (or 26.2) for their lives and for the forward motion of all the young people who are creating a whole new Africa'.

1000 miles on the Day of the Dead

OK I didn't actually run 1000 miles on Halloween, but I did my run my 1000th mile of 2015 during Halloween, all faithfully recorded on my fetcheveryone training log.

The occasion was my regular Hilly Fields parkrun in SE London, this week with a record 203 runners taking part. Some runners and marshals got into the Halloween mood - there were a couple of zombies and a mummy among other characters.

The course was decorated with some pumpkin route markers and a giant spider hanging from a branch:

I ran with a skull mask on my forehead, after a bit of pre-run reading:

As for the 1000 miles - 100 miles per month - I know that's not up there with some of the more dedicated and faster runners at my club, but it's a lot more than I've done in previous years. My endurance has definitely benefited, not sure yet if it has had a consistent effect on my speed.