UNLIKE many of the people I’ve been running with, I do not believe in God, but I do feel blessed in my running career so far. Just three years since my sons persuaded me to get off my backside and join them for a run, I have completed the London Marathon, the Great North Run, a cross-country race as a stand-in for Highgate Harriers and now yesterday, here in Addis Ababa, the best yet, the Great Ethiopian Run.
There were 18,000 registered runners, thousands more unregistered, an estimated one million watching on the streets, a live Ethiopian TV audience of 11 million (just about anyone with access to TV), millions more throughout Africa and Asia and a field any race promoter would be happy with, and not one athlete taking appearance money. Oh, and I was the first member of the unofficial British team home (of which a more modest version later).
The race is the product of the leadership and dedication of a small group of men, mainly British, who wanted to use the power of sport to promote both athletics and its role in health and social policy, but also to show to the world an image of Ethiopia beyond starving children.
Brendan Foster, former athlete, BBC commentator and managing director of Nova International, John Caine, his colleague, Richard Nerurkar, the former Olympic marathon runner who lives in Addis with his wife, an Aids expert, Myles Wickstead, the British ambassador, and Haile Gebrselassie, the Ethiopian running great, can be very proud that in only three years they have created what yesterday became Africa’s biggest mass-participation race. I felt privileged to be one of a small number of non-Africans taking part.
Nor could I complain about the preparations. Although I only had to acclimatise to the altitude, much of the time was spent in the company of Gebrselassie, a national hero here, and the top-class Kenya squad, which came second behind Ethiopia in the team event. I should add that by our reckoning the UK scratch squad, consisting of Brendan, the ambassador, a former colleague and myself, came third.
As I have told Times readers before, when writing about my marathon preparations, I ran in some great places when working for Tony Blair:
Camp David, the grounds of President Putin’s dacha, the grounds of Hillsborough Castle, the streets of every leading European captial and several Third World capitals. But Saturday’s early-morning training run in the mountains above Addis, with Paul Tergat, the marathon world record-holder, Catherine Ndereba, the marathon world champion, and Joyce Chepchumba, the Olympic medal-winner and former London Marathon winner, beat the lot of them.
That their warm-up pace was close to my top speed and that at 10,000 feet above sea level I was gasping for breath the moment we got onto a hill, having left my asthma inhaler in the hotel, made no difference. It was a fantastic experience. It stood me in good stead for yesterday, when we came down to a mere 8,000 feet, which was still twice as high as anything I’d experienced before, and on a course that included two hills more vicious than anything the Great North Run could offer.
Everyone had warned us to go off really slowly, close to the back of the wildly enthusiastic field, or risk being trampled by the youngsters. This was a race with 18,000 runners, 12,000 of whom seemed to think they were going to win. Nerurkar had advised me, on account of the altitude, to add at least ten minutes to my usual 10 kilometres time. I’ve only ever done one 10 kilometres race, which I ran in 45 minutes, so, mentally, I aimed for under an hour, with the added aim of beating Brendan, once the second-fastest 10 kilometres runner in the world, but who on training runs seemed to struggle more with the altitude than I did.
Nor could have I have asked for better motivation at the start line. Tergat, a lovely man and close follower of current affairs, said to me just before he and Gebrselassie sounded the horns to start the race: “You worked hard for Blair — now work hard for yourself.”
Brendan and I started together, survived the early stampede, and at 3K, on the first hill, I moved ahead of him. My water bottle leaked, so I was out of water by 4K and, with the temperature rising through the eighties, I started to suffer. At 7K, I was picked up by two Ethiopians, wonderful, warm-hearted men I’ll likely never see again, who led me up the second hill, one on each shoulder, driving me on with a quiet, rhythmic chant — “do it good time, do it good time, do it good time, do it good time”.
With 300 yards to go and the crowds now ten deep along the finishing straight, Haile Gebrselassie Avenue, up popped Brendan and we crossed the line together in 54min 59sec. So one of my objectives had been met and the other half-met. The fact that the race raised money for famine-relief projects and sports facilities, and I raised money for leukaemia research, added to the sense of a good day’s work out of Africa.
What’s more, hopefully, people far and wide will have seen that there is more to this beautiful country than famine, destitution, Aids and war with Eritrea. There is a warm, generous, population longing to be able to build a better future, and who see in sport a potential force for good. This is a country with perhaps the greatest athlete in the world but only one running track, and that barely fit to use.
It was the third Great Ethiopian Run and the last that will principally be organised by Foster’s company. In the first race, the runners were so keen to get going that there was a string of false starts. There was a near-riot at the water station as competitors fought for more than the single bottle they were allowed, and even Caine, the event organiser, got whacked by the police. In three short years, it has developed to allow the Ethiopians themselves to run it next year and they can be confident about that, even if they did run out of medals yesterday before all the registered runners could get one.
Organising a mass-participation run may be a sight easier than feeding all the hungry or finding a cure for Aids. But it is still a huge achievement and the evident joy it brings to the people here broadens your mind and deepens your expectations of what Ethiopia could achieve in other ways, too. I’d been in two minds about whether to come. I’m really glad I did.
- Alastair Campbell was running to raise money for leukaemia research. To make donations call 020-7405 0101, or visit www.lrf.org.uk
He will become a regular sports writer for The Times in the new year
