David Hemery lives just outside Marlborough, up on the downs he has loved to run across – on grass rather than tarmac. His training for Sunday’s (April 26) 35th running of the London Marathon has taken him many miles across the downs.
Now aged 70, for Sunday’s Virgin Money London Marathon he had planned a regime of running a bit then walking a bit – and was determined to finish the course to raise funds for the charity he founded: 21st Century Legacy. Then last Saturday disaster struck.
While out for a training run his right leg went – the Achilles tendon had seized up with very painful results. It has not ruptured, but is stiff, sore and hot: “I feared”, he told Marlborough News Online, “it had gone. For thirty years I’ve run on the downs, but tarmac’s different.”
So after ten months training, he may have to abandon his run-then-walk (30 seconds running followed by 60 seconds of ‘recovery walking’) regime – and just walk the whole way.
He has been told that if he runs he could rupture the tendon: “The last thing I want is not to run again – running’s been such a part of my life.” David Hemnery won Olympic Gold and broke the world record for the 400 metres hurdles at the Mexico City games in 1968. He did not stop there: in the 1970s he was three times winner of the BBC’s Superstars competitions.
He will be accompanied on the marathon by a long-standing friend Ray Ridley and his second son, Pete who is 30 years old.
Aged 55, Ray Ridley had a stroke eleven months ago which affected one leg, and training for this marathon has been his rehab programme: “It’s been a lifeline for him. His improvement is staggering. He was really wobbly – on the edge of falling down. Now when he runs you can’t tell at all his leg was so bad.” David and Ray had built up to running 12 miles “with no trouble”.
At stake for David Hemery is sponsorship totalling about £86,000 for his charity: “I will do my best to complete even if I’m crawling across the line.” He has worked out that if he does a mile in 15 minutes (4 MPH) he will, with stops for drinks and food, finish in under seven hours.
And that is important because if you finish the London marathon in under eight hours you get a medal: “I just hope I’ll be in front of the man with the broom!”
One slight problem is that BBC television will be ‘tagging’ him so – as with younger athletes and personalities – they can plot his progress along the route with a live on-air map. “If they stop me at Tower Bridge for an interview, it’ll be an hour after the elite athletes have finished! And there’ll be an awful lot of people shouting out ‘Come on Dave – get going’!”
Teams of supporters – including his wife ‘V’, their other son Adrian, Ray Ridley’s family – will be along the route to supply drinks and some food. Another Marlborough ex-athlete, Bruce Tulloh, is providing his special drink Orbana, which replaces electrolytes lost through sweating: “But if I’m walking I may not sweat that much.”
Which took our conversation onto the weather forecast. “It’s probably going to rain. And the longer I take the heavier the rain is expected to be.”
His training has had its ups and downs. While on holiday in New Zealand he fell – cracking his knee and splitting four stitches worth of nose. But at his age “It’s been helpful to have a goal. I’ve been healthy enough, but now I’m much fitter than I was two years ago.”
And two weeks ago he completed a towpath walk from Pewsey to Newbury – a 22 mile achievement which will stand him in good stead- so long as that tendon holds out.
You can see a rather fuzzy version of David Hemery’s Mexico City triumph on You Tube – complete with David Coleman’s somewhat infamous commentary about the third placed hurdler. And here you can hear the BBC’s former athletics commentator Barry Davies on Hemery’s Olympic victory.
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21ST CENTURY LEGACY David Hemery has a strong belief that there is a spark of greatness, something special and unique in everyone. He created and co-authored the Be the Best you can Be! Programme to enable young people to discover the unique potential within themselves and inspire, engage and empower them to pursue and fulfil their dreams, to realise their spark of greatness. He founded 21st Century Legacy to deliver the Be the Best you can Be! Programme as a result of Lord Sebastian Coe’s request to him to have a Legacy that went beyond 2012 and the buildings in London. The promise was that our Olympic Games would be an inspiration to the youth of Britain and the rest of the world. The Be the Best you can Be! Programme helps fulfil that promise and is an Educational Legacy that goes far beyond sport into every area including art, drama, music and every subject.
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