Running: The Autobiography (18 page)

I told Jase that I loved the first run but it had killed me. ‘It was just too far,’ I said. ‘I’ve got my snooker and I’m happy to do that pace for five miles, but another nine miles would just see me off.’

‘Alreet, mate, we’ll just do a fiver next time,’ he said.

He became a great friend. We just ran and ran. He’s started coming to the snooker, and we hang out. It’s nice to know he’s in the crowd, supporting, even if he doesn’t really care about snooker. I always say to him, look, there’s a ticket, if you’re bored you don’t need to bother, but he normally turns up.

Jason was a typical runner. He wasn’t a snooker fan and hadn’t heard of me before. They are a different breed of people. They’re not into money or status or what you do for a living; they’re just into their running. Now every time I get to Sheffield Jason is the first person I call. If I’m in reasonable shape I’ll run with him, if not I won’t bother. I don’t want to waste his time.

When I was away in Sheffield or Telford with Jason and Chris I was at my happiest. I’d get depressed about the thought of going home. I felt sad when I left. I had such a bond with these
people, and they didn’t want anything off me. We just ran and ran.

Occasionally, I’d hook up with someone abroad. One time I was in Malta, talking to the gym manager, Nick.

‘Yeah, I’ll come out running with you,’ Nick said.

‘I just want to find a couple of routes round here.’

‘Yeah, we’ll run there and back, it’s about five miles,’ he said.

‘All right, lovely. Sweet.’

So we went out and he set a good pace, and he said, right we’ll turn round now. I thought, well I know the way back, so I’m off now. Boom! And I lost him. I got back to the gym, and they said, where’s Nick, and I said, well I turned and went and when I looked back I couldn’t see him. I was really fit then; on the way back I was probably 5’ 30” miling, which is good going. Next day when he came back he said: ‘Fuck me, you can run!’ He was a fit guy, but he wasn’t a proper runner.

Some of the best running I ever did as with Eamonn Martin, the last Englishman to win the London Marathon. I was training with the six best runners in Essex and we were doing anything from 800 metres to six miles. One kid could run the 1,500 metres in 3 minutes 50 seconds, and we had one fella who could run 10 kilometres in 29 minutes. They were animals, so I wanted to train with them. I did about three months and got so fit. When I took my top off I was ripped to fuck. I was working hard with my personal trainer, Tracey, at the time, too. Some days when I went to train with Tracey I’d be so knackered we could only do strength stuff because I was too exhausted to run around. This was 2009, the year I beat Mark Selby in the Masters. I remember looking at my face at the end, and I was gaunt as hell.

I’d get up in the morning after a training session with Eamonn and I couldn’t walk for about 15 minutes. A typical hill training session with Eamonn was Monday night. We’d meet up and start with a two-mile jog to the hill, with a stretch for 20 minutes, so that would take you about 45 minutes. Then we’d do the training session which was six x one minute up the hill – you’d run up the hill for a minute as fast as you could. I’d be at the back but I’d be hanging on for dear life. Then you’d jog back down and do it again. Six times all in all. Then we’d do 6 x 30 seconds up the same hill, jog back down, then 6 x 45 seconds and jog back down. Then we’d have a breather, change our clothes, put some warm stuff on and jog back for two miles. All in all the session would take two hours. It was a beast but I loved it.

Then on a Wednesday we’d do longer reps – anywhere between three and five minutes. So we’d split up into two groups, and I’d be in the slower group, and we’d do three minutes, then five minutes, then three minutes, totalling about 30 minutes of quality running. It would be the equivalent of six x five minutes, plus the two-mile warm-up, the stretching. Again, the whole session would last two hours.

On the Saturday we either raced or we met over in Basildon at Langdon Hills and we had this little route. They’d give me a head start and I’d run with the record-breaking half-marathon champion Nick Weatheridge. He was carrying a bit of a belly, but he could still go out and do nine miles at five and a half minutes, no problem. He’s a class athlete. He’s like me with snooker. I might not play for a year, then can still come out and hit a century.

Nick would give me a head start of about 30 seconds and our rep would be about three minutes, but Eamonn would be waiting at the finish point, so when I got to two and a half he’d
say, come on, and he’d push me all the way. Nick would get past me after about two and a half minutes, and as soon as he came past I thought, I’ve just got to hold on. We’d do about six x three minutes on a Saturday. The faster boys would do the longer loop. We were going as fast as we could.

Eamonn has got a dodgy hip and has just had a replacement; he’s in his mid-fifties and I’ve learnt so much from him.

It took me an hour to drive there, an hour back and two hours for the session. So twice a week I was taking four hours out of my evening. I didn’t mind, but Jo wasn’t happy about that. I became super-fit, but because it caused hassle at home I thought I better back off. When I went back down the gym, they couldn’t believe how fit I was. But I’d been training with proper athletes. I could do any machine, I could train for two hours, I never got out of breath.

2008, when I was at my fittest, was the year of my running triumphs. I’ve won three races, all of them in that year. My first win was probably the greatest. It was a fun run in Epping to raise money for Rhys Daniels, a girl who died of a rare degenerative disease called Batten’s.

I’d just won the world championship. All my wins came around that time when I was at my fittest.

My second victory was a handicapped race at Orion running club. Everybody was handicapped so the slowest runners went off first and the fastest last. So, say, somebody runs five miles in 45 minutes and I run it in 27 minutes, she would start off 18 minutes before me. The idea is that everyone comes in roughly together. I was one of the last to go off, and I thought I’d never catch the two in front of me. I ended up winning that race, which was a great feeling, and I won a cream cake or bacon sarnie, something like that!

The third race wasn’t a pure run – it was an assault course
called Lactic Rush, devised by my personal trainer Tracey, and about eighty people took part. It was a criss-cross course with loads of obstacles, so you could see the others as you were running. One of the fellas shouted out to his mate, ‘You can’t let a snooker player beat you.’ And I thought, right, I’ll have you for that! He was just winding me up, and it worked. It made me more determined. He was an army bloke and was good over the assault course – up mud hills, through streams, over tyres, so I just watched how he got over it and copied him. I stayed behind him, conserved a bit of energy, and watched how he went through the assaults. Then over the last mile his shoe came off and I went boom! As soon as I got in front, he died. I won it by more than a minute in the end, which was a lot considering we ran the first six miles together and it was a seven-mile assault course. That made the
Brentwood Gazette
, which gave me a buzz. I won £100 of vouchers. Result.

Soon after that I went on a running holiday to France with the Telford mob – Chris who runs 10 kilometres in 28 minutes, his brother-in-law Mark who runs the marathon in two hours twenty, his wife and Mark’s sister Amanda who runs 10 kilometres in 35 minutes. There were a few others with us from Telford – slower than Chris and his family, but decent nevertheless.

The trip didn’t start off well. We got to the ferry at Portsmouth and I realised I’d forgotten my passport. I had to get a courier to bring it, and that delayed the trip by ten hours. The others went off except for Chris and his dad Terry, which worked out great because I could just talk about running to them. I had them all to myself, but I felt really guilty because I thought these people are going to have the right hump with me now and think I’m a nightmare. But actually they were lovely about it.

We got to France, and I was a bit nervous because the guys are obviously proper athletes. It was probably how an amateur would feel playing me at snooker – fuck me, I’m in trouble here. But they didn’t make me feel like that at all; they were so encouraging.

Terry told us the idea behind the holiday. ‘We’re gonna get PBs,’ he said. ‘You’re gonna get a PB,’ he said looking at me. ‘She’s going to get a PB, Chris won’t get a PB but he’s going to win the race, and Mark’s going to do a good time in the half marathon.’

Mark, who is a top man, said he wasn’t going to do the half marathon because he wasn’t fit enough, but he was going to pace me round the 10 kilometres. ‘You will be getting a PB tomorrow,’ he said, like he was stating a fact.

We got to Caen in the north-west of France, booked into our little hotel for £18 a night. Next day, me, Mark and Chris went for a jog, just to keep our legs turning over. I thought fuck me this is going to be fast, but it wasn’t. It was a leisurely jog, and this is when I discovered that top athletes were happy going out running 7-8 minute miles, and not going flat out all the time. I studied the way they trained and raced, the same way I studied snooker players.

We had breakfast together, enjoyed each other’s company. Amanda beat 3,000 people to win the 5 kilometres for women in 15 minutes on the Thursday night. Then we had the 10 kilometres, half marathon and marathon to come.

So Mark paced me round and said just stick in with me. At 5 kilometres I was gone. ‘I can’t do this,’ I said to Mark, ‘it’s killing me.’

‘Up on your toes,’ he said. ‘Chest up, chest up, up on your toes, and keep on the balls of your feet.’

‘I can’t, Mark, I’m fucked.’

‘You’re doing well,’ he said. ‘Chest up.’

Every time I slowed down he went ‘tuck in behind me, tuck in behind me’. So I just tried to hang on.

When we got to four miles I started to overtake some runners. I thought fucking hell, we’re picking a few off here. It gave me confidence. He said, ‘You’re doing well, you’ve got another mile and a half to go.’

‘I’m fucked, Mark, I can’t keep going.’

‘No you can. You can.’

I had a mile to go and I was thinking I must be running a good time.

‘You’re on for your PB,’ Mark kept saying. ‘You’re on for your PB.’

My PB was 35 minutes 50, so anything under that was great.

‘You’ve got half a mile,’ Mark said. ‘Keep going, keep going.’ I knew I wasn’t going to stop by then. I thought I’ve come this far. I’d learnt that you can run in a lot of discomfort. We got to the last 400 metres and Mark went, ‘Right, go! If you’ve got anything left, go!’ And I sprinted like a lunatic and got over the line in 34.50. I couldn’t believe it.

Chris had come in at 30 minutes. I sat on the side, and said, ‘How d’you do, Chris?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I won it. And you beat your PB.’

Then Terry, Chris’s dad, came over and said, ‘See, I told you, you got your PB.
You got your PB!
’ He was ecstatic. I caned my PB; beat it by a minute – five forty miling, good running.

I was made up. My family life was a mess, but I was so happy just then with my running friends in France. We had pizzas, watched the World Cup and I thought I’m around beautiful people, I’ve just got my PB, I’m a running bore, I’ve won the World Championship, I’m staying in an £18-a-night hotel, no one’s drinking, no one’s taking drugs, I ain’t got to worry what
I’m eating because it’s just burning off, I thought I’ve cracked it, I’ve got the recipe for life.

The next day we got up and they said we’re going to the beach. It sounded great, but you knew there’d always be a run involved along the way. So we got there and Chris said, ‘Right, I’m just going for a little jog with Amanda, d’you want come?’ and Mark said, ‘Yeah, great,’ and I joined them. Mark and I ended up doing a five-mile run at a lovely pace along the beach, just shorts, no top, no trainers, and we were flying. We must have been six-minute miling along the beach, and I didn’t even feel tired. I felt as if I could do this for ever. I’d worked hard to get to this level of fitness, but it was worth all the effort – life doesn’t get any better than this. It was the happiest I’ve ever been.

15

RONNIE’S HANDY
RUNNING HINTS

‘24 minutes, 3 and a half miles, easy felt good, nice rhythm, trying to kick my legs back at my bum and stand tall.’

Break those distances down

I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some good trainers over the years and people who give you good advice. The easy thing to think is you’ve got to run loads and loads and loads to get faster and fitter. In fact, to run fast you simply have to run fast, and to do that you have to break it down into minisegments and interval work. The idea with interval work is that you run a lot faster than you normally would, but not to the point where your technique is suffering. But you can run 400 metres faster than you can run a mile so you break that mile down into four reps of 400 metres, so you do 4 x 400 metres off a two-minute recovery. In other words, you have a two-minute gap between every 400 metres. The advantage of the recovery is that you can run each 400 metres faster than if you ran one continuous mile flat out.

Listen to your body

You also need to listen to your body. A cliché, but true. I would often go out and get injured because I was overtraining, pushing myself too much, trying to get too fit too fast. If you’ve got that mentality, you’ll end up knackered and unable to train so it becomes a vicious circle. The best advice I ever got was from Chris Davies’s dad, Terry, in Telford. He trained a lot of the good runners up there. I’d train the first day, then a second, and the third day I’d go running and I’d have to stop. I went to have a massage and my calves were so tight, but I didn’t realise it was my calves till I had the massage. So after I broke my foot I phoned Terry up and said: ‘Look, I’m really out of shape because I haven’t trained for seven months. I’m struggling, carrying a lot of weight.’ He said: ‘Look, just do twenty minutes every other day for the first five or six weeks.’ So I did that: I was able to run with no injuries and after four weeks I found myself getting faster and faster, not having to stop as much. In short, I was listening to my body; not overdoing it. I was enjoying each run I went on because my muscles weren’t killing me. It’s hard to listen to your body when you’re obsessive! But if you get too enthusiastic, you’re just going to end up on the runners’ scrapheap. As I write, I’m being sensible. Not as fit as I have been, but doing nicely enough. Getting there slowly. Every other day I do my nice little four-mile loop because that’s all my body can take at the moment. To push it further would be silly. Once I get three or four months’ training under my belt I’ll push it a bit further.

Run tall

There’s lots of advice you can give on posture etc., but then again there are so many exceptions to the rule I’m not sure how
worthwhile that advice is. For example, I watched Paula Rad-cliffe run and her head bobbed like a crazed chicken’s – hardly classic – but she was winning all her races. So I thought, I’m going to try that, and it worked for me because it stopped me thinking about having sore legs. I was just focusing on bobbing my head about. But you tell any coach that and he’ll laugh you off the track.

Coaches will tell you that to run well you’ve got to feel that you’re running tall. When you’re not fit you slouch and sit on your hips and your stride gets shorter. A lot of the time I used to sit on my hips and shuffle along because a lot of the runners I ran with were long-distance runners and they shuffled along on a shorter stride. To increase your stride you’ve got to do a lot of drills – get your knees up high. It’s hard to change your natural stride pattern, though. People tend to have a naturally long or short one, and sometimes you just have to go with what you’ve got. But the fitter you get, the stronger you get; the less you sit on your hips, the better the rhythm you’ll have. When I wasn’t fit and I was tired, I had a tendency to run out of energy; then my shoulders would slacken and I’d sit on my hips and shuffle along. But when I was fit I always felt I was pushing the top half of my body through, and that makes you feel you’re having a good run. And if you feel you’re having a good run that tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Run on the balls of your feet

The best runners run on the balls of their feet because it’s quicker, whereas if you go heel-toe, heel-toe you’re doing more work for the same distance. If you go toe toe, toe-toe, you’re going to have energy and be quicker, but it’s hard to run on your toes. When I’m running well I feel my feet are hitting the
ground quicker, but I’m still not running on the balls of my feet.

Give those fry-ups a miss

My ideal diet would be a slice of toast before I run, then porridge for breakfast when I get back. Then I’d have tuna salad at lunch and fish with boiled or jacket potatoes for dinner and natural or Greek yoghurt with a banana and a bit of honey. When I’m not training I fall back into the bad roasties and fry-ups habit, but when I’m training I just can’t do it. I used to run a food diary as well as the running diary. As I say, I’m obsessive. If I was tempted to eat something bad, the diary would stop me because I knew I’d have to write it down at the end of the night.