Twin Ambitions - My Autobiography (12 page)

After a while I finally plucked up the courage and told Tania that I had feelings for her. I wasn’t too pushy about it. I simply had to tell her how I felt. Tania was really good about it. She explained that she didn’t see us in quite the same way as me, but she wanted us to stay as good friends. I was like, ‘Okay. That’s cool.’ I took it on the chin. These things happen for a reason and looking back, I think if we had hooked up for real at that point, things might not have turned out as well as they have done. We were both young and immature – especially me. I was still very much a kid at heart. I didn’t have that sense of responsibility. Had we got together then, with me being the way I was, it would probably have fizzled out. It’s better that we skipped those years and revisited that scenario in later life. How I felt didn’t change our friendship. We still talked a lot and continued spending time together. That’s just how it was.

At the age of eighteen I was at a crossroads. I was itching to move out of the cramped bedroom I shared with my cousin Mahad and explore more of the world. I was running in different countries and meeting new people. I was ready to move on and live my own life. My time at Isleworth was coming to an end. I wanted to continue training, but at the same time I had to find some way of supporting myself. This is the toughest part of a young athlete’s career. Figuring out a way to juggle your training commitments with the need to earn a living. At the back of my head I thought, ‘Unless something really big happens, I’m going to have to get a full-time job.’

As luck would have it, something really big did happen.

For a few months I’d been seriously considering joining the army. An officer from the local regiment had given a talk to sixth-formers at Isleworth about the benefits of life in the military. To me, it sounded like a good idea. Some of my friends had relatives in the army, and they couldn’t speak highly enough of it. Importantly, they claimed that if I joined up, I’d be given time off to compete in athletics competitions. Apparently, the army was generous when it came to stuff like that. I didn’t consider the implications of military service. I just thought, if I enlist with the army, I’ll be able to train and compete,
and
get paid and have somewhere to live at the same time. It seemed like a good way of solving the problem of how to balance my training and the need to make money. I thought about it some more, and by the spring of 2001, I had pretty much made up my mind that I was going to enlist once I left Isleworth.

That same year the World Cross Country Championships were being held in Belgium. I was determined to do better than my performance in Portugal, but I finished even lower down the rankings. Fifty-ninth. I wasn’t even the highest-placed European this time. Guys from Belgium, Spain and Italy – they had all beaten me. That young Ethiopian, Bekele, won again. A clear gap was starting to emerge between the Kenyans and Ethiopians and the rest of the field, a gap I wanted to close. After the race I got chatting to one of the coaches attached to the senior GB endurance team. His name was Alan Storey. I’d heard of him on the circuit and seen him a few times at different competitions when I was competing for Great Britain as a junior. Alan was the Head of Endurance for UK Athletics. He said a few words to me, then the conversation turned to my plans for the future.

‘What are you doing next, when you leave Isleworth?’ Alan asked.

‘I’m going to join the army,’ I said.

Alan looked shocked. ‘No, no, don’t do that!’

‘Well, then, what am I gonna do?’ I asked. ‘I just want to run.’

Alan said, ‘You won’t believe this, but we’ve just opened a high-performance sports centre down the road from you. It’s at St Mary’s University [in Twickenham]. It’s a training base for gifted young athletes such as yourself, who have the potential to win medals. I’m in charge of the set-up there. We run a scholarship scheme. What would you say if I had a word, see about getting you on the scheme?’

As Alan told me more about this Endurance Performance and Coaching Centre (EPACC), I started to get excited. This was exactly the opportunity I’d been looking for. The scholarship Alan Storey had mentioned was a joint venture between UKA and London Marathon to produce endurance athletes. Since the glory days of Dave Bedford, Seb Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram, British distance running had been in a terrible state. As part of the deal, London Marathon would pay my board and fees and I’d live on campus, literally on the doorstep of the training centre. Even better, Alan Storey would become my new coach. I told Alan I’d love to go there. He went away and made a few calls. There were still one or two hurdles to overcome. My grades weren’t good enough for St Mary’s. We reached an agreement where I had to continue studying at college in Richmond in order to keep my scholarship at the university.

A couple of months later it was official: I had a place at St Mary’s, and a scholarship thanks to London Marathon. I was one of the first athletes to train at the centre. And if it hadn’t been for that chat with Alan Storey, I would’ve joined the army.

L
IVING
on campus at St Mary’s was amazing. And for a while, at least, I went a little nuts. I suddenly had this sense of freedom. Now I could go out whenever I wanted – do whatever I liked. In my mind, as long as I was making it to training with Alan Storey and running in competitions, I didn’t see any problem with staying out late or going to fancy-dress parties (I dressed up as Tarzan). In the end, I would have a serious decision to make. But at the start, I just wanted to have fun.

At the time I was one of only two athletes on the elite endurance programme at St Mary’s. The other was James McIlroy. James was a couple of years older than me. Although he began competing for Ireland, James switched nationality to run for Great Britain, and by the time he joined St Mary’s, he had a reputation as one of the rising stars of middle-distance running. We both trained under Alan Storey, and from what I saw of James, he had unbelievable talent. He had that extra element of commitment that I was lacking; James took training seriously, he paid attention to his diet, sticking to vegetables and salads and high-protein foods, while I scoffed down jacket potatoes and beans on toast in the campus refectory, or grabbed frozen ready meals from the Tesco up the road.

We lived in a plain brown-brick building on the campus. Typical student digs, lots of posters up on the walls reminding people to clean up after themselves. Our dorm was directly opposite the athletics field, although we didn’t do much in the way of training at St Mary’s: the athletics track had been laid upside down. (In fairness the problem was later fixed and the track is perfect now.) Running on that meant you might as well be running on concrete. To get around that problem I did the majority of my training over at the Thames Valley track with Windsor Slough Eton & Hounslow. I’d roll out of bed, get into my battered old Ford Fiesta and drive up to the club, training with Benedict Whitby and Sam Haughian and the rest.

As the endurance specialist for UK Athletics, Alan oversaw my training. He was a fairly short, stocky man with thin-rimmed glasses and a reputation as one of the world’s best distance running coaches. He was something of a guru. His background was different from the likes of Alex McGee and Conrad Milton. Alan had worked at Durham University, looking after several established distance runners before taking over as the National Marathon Coach and training two runners to victory in the London Marathon. After that, he had spent time in Asia and worked as an adviser to women’s athletics in China. His star athlete at the time was Sonia O’Sullivan, the Irish distance runner who’d won gold in the 5000 metres at the World Championships in Gothenburg in 1995. She’d won silver in the same event at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Alan had been a major factor in what Sonia achieved.

Neil Black was also part of the set-up at St Mary’s. Neil, nicknamed Blackie, was my physio back then. Blackie is my physio to this day, although he now combines sorting out my body with his day job as the performance director for UKA. I’m not sure which is more demanding! Like Alan Storey, Blackie is world-class at his job. He treated several top athletes, including Christian Malcolm, Marlon Devonish and Kelly Holmes, and we were lucky to have him at St Mary’s. From day one, Blackie has been very good to me. He knows my body better than anyone; he’s one of those guys who will stop at nothing to get to the root of a problem. Quite simply, he’s the best physio an athlete could ask for.

Zara Hyde Peters also worked for the endurance team at St Mary’s. Zara was the Technical Director for Endurance, and she worked in the office that Alan had on campus. From the very moment that I met Zara I knew she had Somali heritage. Somalis have this ability to recognize each other from a mile off. In the same way, I suppose, that a Jamaican can spot a native of Kingston at first glance, Somalis can instantly tell when they meet someone else from their homeland. In fact, I can spot the difference between someone from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea or Djibouti. It turned out that Zara had been born in Ireland but her dad came from Somalia. She was the hands-on member of the team. I’d see Zara whenever I popped into the office to pick up my mail. She liked to call me, Chris Thompson and Sam Haughian her three musketeers. If that was true, then I was a musketeer driving without a proper licence.

One day I remember driving back to St Mary’s campus after a hard training session over at Thames Valley and seeing Neil Black standing at the side of the field, watching me steer my knackered Fiesta into the car park, windows rolled down, Tupac pounding out of the tinny speakers. I killed the engine, unfolded myself from the driver’s seat and nodded at Blackie.

‘What’s up?’

‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Mo. But have you got a driving licence?’

‘Yeah, yeah, course,’ I replied.

Without saying another word I showed him my provisional licence. Neil’s eyes went wide with disbelief. ‘
This
is your driving licence?’

‘What’s the problem?’

It didn’t take long for Blackie to set me straight. I only had a provisional because I’d never taken my driving test. And I’d never taken my test because I thought the provisional covered me to drive just as long as I had the ‘L’ plate fastened to the rear bumper.

‘What about insurance?’ Neil asked. ‘Do you have that, at least?’

The answer was no. It was pretty clear that I’d had a narrow escape, driving between the club and the campus like that. There were all kinds of things like this that I just didn’t know – stuff no one had explained to me, that everyone assumes you know. A lot of my life I’ve been learning on my feet, having to pick things up as I go along. I booked myself in for my driving test, took it and passed, glad that Neil had pointed out to me the deal with provisional licences before I’d got into serious trouble.

Later on, I was almost banned after overtaking an old-age pensioner who was driving up a hill too slowly for my liking. I hadn’t realized the vehicle behind me was a police car. Another close call. My driving is much better these days.

Kim McDonald, my agent, tragically passed away in November 2001, when I was eighteen. Kim’s death came as a real shock. He died of a heart attack in Brisbane, just forty-five years old. Tributes flowed in from around the athletics community and the many athletes he’d taken under his wing. Following Kim’s death, an Irish former middle-distance runner called Ricky Simms took over the business. Like Kim, Ricky also really knew his stuff. They had guys like John Mayock, Mark-Lewis Francis and Tim Benjamin on the books, as well as Sam Haughian, and I decided to stay with the company, now called PACE.

Slowly, more athletes arrived on scholarships at St Mary’s or to train in the Teddington area. There was Andrew Walker, an Irish runner who trained with PACE. Andrew was a twin, the same as me. I used to wind Andrew up about his taste in music. He was an absolutely massive Bob Dylan fan and he’d always try and get me to listen to some of his songs.

‘Mo, Mo, sit down!’ Andrew used to say. ‘Listen to this
tune
, man.’

I could never get into any of that type of music. Too slow. I like a good beat. I’d listen for a minute, get bored and throw on some Tupac. One of the old classics like ‘How Do U Want It’ or ‘I Ain’t Mad at Cha’.

‘Now,
this
is the real deal,’ I’d say. ‘This is what I’m talking about.’

Andrew would just make this face and switch the music back to Dylan.

Then there was Big Frank.

I already knew Yasin Nasser, aka Big Frank, from the athletics club. He lived by himself in a nice flat and sometimes a few of us would head over to his place, play Pro Evo or watch a few DVDs. We loved all the crime movies –
Goodfellas
,
Casino
,
Training Day
. Yasin was half-Somali and half-Arab, and I could never resist taking the mick out of him. He had this down-to-earth, reasonable manner, but I just had the knack of being able to push his buttons and get him properly irate. One time we were watching
Goodfellas
when one of the characters came out with the line, ‘Call me Frank.’

I turned to Yasin. He was tall. The Mafia guy on the screen was also tall. And for some reason I thought Frank suited Yasin better than his given name. I grinned at him and said, ‘That’s your name from now on – Big Frank!’

‘What?’ Yasin screwed up his face. ‘No way, man. My name ain’t Big Frank.’

‘Now it is … Big Frank.’

‘Stop calling me that!’

From that day on, whenever we were heading out to a party or to meet up with mates, I’d introduce Yasin as Big Frank. He’d be spitting mad, protesting that his name wasn’t Big Frank. But no one listened to him. The name stuck. Everyone around St Mary’s knew him as Big Frank. People would pass him in the street: ‘Morning, Big Frank.’ ‘What’s up, Big Frank?’ ‘Hey, Big Frank, you coming out tonight?’ Every time someone addressed him as Big Frank, Yasin went through the roof. I cracked up any time I heard someone call him by his new name. Many people still know Yasin as Big Frank. He lives in Canada these days. They probably call him Big Frank out there too. We’ve become great friends, so I think he’s got over his initial anger about his new name.