Dave King
HERE’S the challenge, to run around the British Isles in 80 races in a calendar year.
That was the task facing journalist and runner Dave King, who decided to spend 2007 in search of races the length and breadth of these fair isles to seek out the characters and culture of the sport.
In a light-hearted and whimsical read, which Dave describes as a bit like “Alan Whicker with running shoes”, he sets about on his grand tour beginning with a two kilometre race in Derbyshire at three minutes to midnight on New Year’s Eve.
There are a few fireworks and some rain to a low-key start to this madcap adventure which takes in races as grand as the London Marathon and the Great North Run, historical events such as the Braemar Highland Games and the Blaydon Races, fearsome sounding challenges like The Grizzly and The Terminator to the downright weird such as Race The Train in Wales and the Chiquita Bananaman Run, when Dave dressed up as a banana to be chased by hundreds of runners.
Dave raced with inmates inside a prison, went hashing through flooded fields at night, raced with a dog, climbed bone-jarring mountains and ran through icy-cold rivers on a journey which took in races in England, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
The journey finished just where it began, in Derbyshire 12 months later for the 2km run on New Year’s Eve.
It is a fascinating, funny and touching account of his travels, unearthing many of the characters for whom running is not just a sport – it is a way of life.
Dave King has been a journalist for more years than he cares to remember and is currently editor of the Swindon Advertiser. This is his first foray into the wacky world of book-writing…and probably his last!
Dave lives in Hampshire and Wiltshire, and has three boys – Micah, Leo and Ross.
Besides his twin passions of running and autism, Dave also has an unhealthy interest in following the plummeting fortunes of Notts County Football Club, reading trashy novels and listening to music best suited to the tone deaf.
SO this is it. Milford, a village lying in the heart of Derbyshire’s Derwent Valley, and the starting point for a year-long running adventure.
It’s not the most picturesque or romantic of places to set out on this challenge. Given the choice I would much prefer a snowy peak in Scotland, a misty moor in Yorkshire, or perhaps a rural setting in the Cotswolds; one of those little chocolate box villages sprinkled with thatched cottages and the rich smell of wood smoke spilling out of the chimneys. Instead, I am celebrating New Year’s Eve in this tiny hamlet which has the busy A6 between Duffield and Belper choking its way through.
Milford grabbed a name for itself during the Industrial Revolution when a string of textile mills sprung up alongside the River Derwent. Jedediah Strutt built a water-powered cotton mill, and after that the village took off big-time. Sadly, much of the 150-year-old mill building was demolished between 1952 and 1964. A huge chimney-stack now dominates the Milford skyline, while what remains of the old mill has been transformed into workshops. But hey, you’ve got to start somewhere.
It’s New Year’s Eve, 30 minutes to the witching hour, and Milford Social Club is a surreal location as a starting point for this adventure. This is a typical, old-fashioned Working Men’s Club with a tatty, tired and worn feel to it. Several locals are sat round a table at one end of the room nursing pints and sharing a joke. Hazel, a lady in the autumn of her years, holds custody of the bar exchanging the latest village gossip with a Scottish lady perched on a stool, smoking away. “Help yourself to some food, duck,” says Hazel, smiling and pointing to platefuls of pickled onions, sausage rolls and potato wedges. I bet the carbo-loading Kenyans don’t get offered this sort of feast before a big race.
With the clock slowly ticking towards midnight, runners are streaming steadily into the social club where race organiser, David Denton, has taken up a position at the other end of the room. Sat next to the electronic one-arm bandit machine, David is scribbling down race entries while handing out numbers and safety pins. With his round spectacles and grey beard, David has that professorial look. He’s an interesting guy who has been organising races for 40 years, yet spends the months commuting between homes in Derbyshire, Prague and India; a strange combination of holiday destinations.
New Year’s Eve is a time to get well and truly bladdered. Usually in that hazy, drunken stupor, it is a chance to look back on the last 12 months with rose-tinted spectacles. Over a sherbert or two, it is an opportunity to agree that though it was another pile of trite, next year can only get better. It is not a time to throw on your running shoes, definitely not if you’re sober. But on the pavement outside the Milford Social Club dozens, of suspiciously sane souls, clad in tight leggings and fluorescent tops, plus the occasionally woolly hat, are limbering up for the Bryan Clifton Memorial Midnight Run which is held every New Year’s Eve at three minutes to midnight.
I must be out of my skull for this, my first race in a 12-month running adventure. I intend to run into 2007 with this 2kilometre dawdle beside the Derwent. The goal, injury and sanity permitting, is to be back here in Milford
