Occasionally, in my youth, on a winter morning, I would wake early — perhaps stirred by my father getting ready for work — and feel the need to run.
I would pull on my kit and creep quietly downstairs, along the corridor to the kitchen. My father, steam rising from his tea and smoke curling from his cigarette, was already planning his day at the steelworks. He would nod his approval as I left.
Out into the dark, deserted street I went, the only noise the hum and clatter of a milk float. I jogged past the sad, shuttered stalls of the toffee-apple, candy floss and seafood vendors, all absent, somewhere else; the stalls themselves seemed to be in hibernation.
Running into the winter light
The morning beach was deserted and litter-free, apart from any newly delivered flotsam. If the tide was right, somewhere on the long, shallow, shelving shore between the dark ooze nearer the breakwater and the soft sand nearer the bank, I would stop at the steps, remove my shoes and socks, and make my way to the water.
On a beach with few pebbles, among the grey, rounded local limestones, there was the occasional exotic stone; granite, gabbro or gneiss, brought there perhaps by some southward tongue of the last glaciation, or more recently, but still long ago, discarded as ballast from a returning collier ship.
Barefoot on the sand, my feet would be cold; the shallow water was icy but exhilarating. Back home, there would be a warm bath, then school.
Another run, another place
Later that year, on a Saturday in August 1966, I had worked a night shift in my summer holiday job at Port Talbot’s Abbey Melting Shop. I remember making tannoy announcements of the score from England’s World Cup victory at Wembley.
I was picked up at Waterton roundabout and taken to Jenner Park in Barry, where I was to run the 880-yard leg of a medley relay.
I recorded my personal best for the event, qualified by the fact that it came in a relay leg, with the advantage of a rolling start. The unofficial time, taken by a teammate, was 1:54.4. The imperial half mile of 880 yards is 4.68 metres longer than its metric equivalent, the 800 metres. The longer distance is rarely run now, although 800m records can still be set during 880-yard races.
The record that would not fall
To put my effort into context, the men’s world record in 1966 was 1:44.3, set by Peter Snell of New Zealand. The women’s world 800m record in 1964 was Ann Packer’s 2:01.1, set in Tokyo.
In 1983, Jarmila Kratochvílová set the women’s 800m world record at 1:53.28. It remains the longest-standing outdoor track world record in athletics, and a time very close to my own 880-yard PB if converted.
Testosterone, fairness and suspicion
In 2017, research commissioned by the International Association of Athletics Federations concluded that female athletes with elevated testosterone levels had a competitive advantage, particularly in women’s events between 400m and 1500m.
South African athlete Caster Semenya ran 1:54.25 for 800m in 2018, a time that remains among the fastest ever recorded. She won Olympic and World Championship gold medals between 2009 and 2017. After one of her early championship wins, she was controversially required to undergo sex testing and was later cleared to compete. Semenya has a difference of sex development and naturally elevated testosterone levels. She was subsequently excluded from her favoured 800m under the 2019 IAAF regulations unless she reduced those levels through medication, which she declined to do.
A new generation closes in
Kratochvílová’s record is now being chased by an emerging generation of brilliant women’s 800m runners. Audrey Werro has run 1:53.80 this year, Keely Hodgkinson 1:54.33, and Georgia Hunter Bell 1:54.90, according to World Athletics’ all-time list.
Hodgkinson, Werro, Wales’s Isabelle Boffey and others are part of a renewed depth in the event. The prospect of Europe’s best meeting again gives the distance a rare sense of danger and possibility.
Femke Broeders-Bol, better known as a 400m hurdles champion, has also made swift progress over 800m, adding another layer of intrigue to an event that has suddenly become one of athletics’ most compelling stories.
The brutal beauty of middle distance
The 800m and the half mile sit between the sprints and endurance track events, demanding a rare blend of anaerobic and aerobic performance.
A 100m sprinter may barely breathe during a 10-second effort. An 800m race is run at near-maximum sustainable speed for between roughly 1:40 and two minutes. That intensity limits the body’s ability to supply enough oxygen to the muscles, forcing a heavy reliance on anaerobic respiration for energy. The result is the familiar flood of lactate and a level of discomfort many athletes consider unique to the distance.
That may be why the 800m has always seemed so demanding. It asks competitors to “fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run”. That is an achievement of which they can all be justifiably proud, whatever their gender, physiology or the rules by which sport tries to define fairness.
More from Paul Bright
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