Interview:
Ron Hill
When it comes to
running, not many have done as much as Ron Hill. He’s won marathons, he’s broken world
records, he’s started his own sportswear company and he’s designed trainers
with Reebok.
Not only that, but since December 1964, he’s ran every single day, without fail
— through sleet, snow and a broken sternum.
I met Ron in a few
weeks ago to talk about his endless achievements. We were sat in a renovated
mill on the outskirts of Hyde, it had been raining all morning and the 76 year
old had just got back from his daily run...
It might be a bit
of an obvious question, but how did you start running?
When I first went
to Accrington Grammar School I used to get a boy’s magazine called The Rover.
There was a guy in The Rover called Alf Tupper — the Tough of the Track. In the
pictures it would be pouring with rain, there were cobbled stone streets and
gas lamps, and he was very poor. It never showed his parents, he lived on
disused barges and under railway arches, and he was a welder.
If he had a race to
go to in London something would go wrong — he’d have to work all night welding
or something. Then he’d hitchhike down to London, eat a bag of fish and chips,
vault over the railings and get on the track. He’d be up against all these
toffee noses from Oxford and Cambridge and he’d beat them all on the last lap.
And I thought,
“Bloody hell, this is a man with nothing going for him whatsoever, and he’s
succeeding.” He wasn’t in a team, the officials were against him and I thought
that I’d like to be like that — doing stuff all off my own back, basically.
Could you relate to
Alf then? What was your situation like growing up?
I managed through
the Eleven Plus to get into a grammar school, but yeah, we were very poor. My
mother had to go out to work to support us and my dad worked on the railway but
it didn’t pay a lot of money.
We were poor, but I
didn’t realise that — you just live like that. I went back to an Accrington
Grammar School reunion and someone said, “Bloody hell, you were poor weren’t
you?” He probably said that because my socks were all darned, but I didn’t
notice that, I was just glad to be studying and getting on with things.
I’d joined the
cross country club and I was the only guy in the school who looked forward to
the annual race, everyone else just went round the corner to hide.
When did running
become something more than just the annual cross country race?
From 1953 onwards I
ran in the cross country races — the East Lancs, the Northern and the National.
You had the boys and the youths, then the juniors and then the seniors. I went
along to those but never did anything; I was just excited to be at a race. I
remember the first one I ran was as a youth and I was like 256th or
something like that — but I was still excited and looked forward to the next
one. I remember I couldn’t sleep at night because I was so nervous before a
race. Even as a junior I think I was 55th.
That’s some progress but it’s nowhere near the front.
And then I went to
Manchester University to study Textile Chemistry. In digs I was living with a
couple of people who were runners and we began to learn about training. That’s
when I got quite serious.
When did you start
winning then?
By 1962 I’d become
a really avid racer. This was before I’d graduated and I wanted to run every
weekend I could find a race. That was how I entered my first marathon — I was
looking one week in 1961 and I couldn’t find anything that weekend, but I saw
on the fixture list that there was the Liverpool Marathon.
I lived in
Fallowfield at the time so I got a bus into Manchester and then a train to
Liverpool and went to Saint Georges Hall where it started at. There were 53
entries — and this was supposed to be a big marathon! Maybe 30 people finished,
and I managed to win it, which was a bit of a shock.
At first it was
like, “Why are they running so slowly?” so I decided to let someone else have
the lead — a man called John Tarrant. John was known as The Ghost Runner
because he’d got banned from being an amateur athlete after admitting to
receiving ten pounds to buy boxing equipment. Anyway, I passed this guy with
four miles to go and won the race.
The finish was at
Anfield in front of the crowd for a pre-season football game, so it was crammed
and the noise was amazing. But after that I was so stiff a guy had to give me a
lift back to Manchester. He took me to Wythenshawe and propped me up against a
bus-stop. I remember thinking, “Bloody hell, I’m not doing this again.”
Anyway, in those
days the papers like The Guardian would follow the race and I read the report
and saw my picture in the paper and thought, “Well, it wasn’t too bad that, was
it?” And that was what got me into marathon running. I subsequently ran another
114 marathons.
How often were you
running at this point?
I was doing 100
miles a week for two years. I was going out in the morning before cycling to
university and I was going flat out. I was knackered.
This is probably a
bit of a boring question, but was it hard to do that much running whilst trying
to do your university stuff too?
Not really, it just
became a routine. I did the morning run, had a bit of breakfast, biked to
university — I was in the laboratory most of the time on the fifth for of UMIST
— then I’d get on the bike home, stop off at the ground, get changed quickly,
do a run and go home. I had a small scholarship, but to keep our finances
together my wife was working. We’d then have something to eat and maybe listen
to the radio or read a book. And that was life — we didn’t know anything else
and we didn’t expect anything else — we just got on with it.
Was your decision
to do Textile Chemistry at university because of your running? How did you
start making clothes yourself?
No, that was
another lucky break. I had no idea what I wanted to do. The headmaster at
Accrington Grammar kept me on for an extra year to study Latin as he wanted as
many pupils as possible to go to Oxford or Cambridge. So I got the
qualification and I went down to Oxford to do the entrance exams and I’m not
kidding you… I was Alf Tupper there. It was totally alien to me. The accents,
the things that were happening — I just thought, “There’s no way I’m going to
come down here.”
So I just answered
a few silly questions in the oral part and then quite honestly, I didn’t write
anything in the written part. I just left it blank.
I still had no idea
what I wanted to do, but the careers master said, “There’s two scholarships
going here, both in textiles.” So I went down to talk to the head of Textile
Chemistry and I got the scholarship. Okay, it was interesting and I stayed on
to do the PHD, probably because I thought I could get another three years with
the time to train and race abroad. And then I got a job at a company called
Courtaulds.
Meanwhile at that
time I got to know the treasurer of the East Lancs Running Association. And he
said, “If you want to try and buy a house I’ll lend you the £250 for the
deposit.” So I started to look for a house. I thought, “Well, the only way to
get my training in whilst I’m working full time is to run to work and back,” So
I got an ordnance survey map, stuck a compass in it with a five mile radius and
I drew a circle of places to look for a house. I got one in a place called
Romiley, right on the line. Obviously I couldn’t run as the crow flies, so it
ended up being about seven miles, which was ideal.
Looking back, it
must have been tough in winter because it snowed and it was dark and it was
raining, but I can’t say it was a terrible time or anything.
Having done that, I
was looking at the clothing I was wearing. There were some pants on the market
that were made from cotton. And they were alright if it was dry, but if it
rained they just absorbed moisture like anything — you were running holding the
things up. And the jackets that we had weren’t waterproof jackets. So I decided
to start looking at designing clothing myself.
We designed some
shorts called Freedom Shorts that were split up the side. These came about
because I was running for Lancashire in the Inter Counties Cross Country
Championships and I couldn’t lift my legs fully in the shorts I had. So I
ripped them up the sides at the seams and suddenly I had this freedom. It
looked a bit daft though, with these splits up the side, so I came up with the
idea to overlap the front seam over the back. You still had the parting when
you were running, but when you were standing around, you just looked normal.
It was the same
with vests. I went to a marathon in Japan and found a vest that was really well
cut, so we’d make them too. There was a factory in Hyde where this guy would
make me short runs of things.
My wife and I had
built up this mail order business to about £800 a week or something like that.
I thought that if I did it full time then we could have a secure business… so
that’s what happened.
How did word get
out about Ron Hill Clothing?
We did a small ad,
a tiny classified ad, in Athletics Weekly and it just built up. The stock was
building up so much in our small detached house that the loft got full, and
then the garage got full and then the corridor to the front door got full. I
thought, “Christ, we can’t continue like this.” So we bought a derelict shop in
Hyde — an old chemist’s shop. It was a dump really as we had no money to put
proper furnishings in there, but that was when people started knocking at the
door. So we turned it into a retail outlet as well as the headquarters. And it
just went from there.
Why do you think it
was so successful? Did your experience as a runner help?
Yeah, they worked.
Like the mesh vest — I was looking in 1968 for something that would give my
skin maximum exposure to the air to cool it down, as I knew the Olympics were
going to be in Mexico City.
I think in the May
of that year I ran a 20 mile race. I ran away from everybody in that race. I
had a pair of shoes that had just been made for me by Reebok and
a cutaway vest and I ran one hour, 36 minutes and 38 seconds, which if you
think about it is two 49 minute ten miles on the trot. I was miles in front of
everybody else. I don’t think the selectors ever saw it, but that gave me a lot
of confidence. There was such disbelief at my time that the guy at the course
went and re-measured the course the day after.
But anyway, my
cutaway vest didn’t really work so I went to Stockport Army and Navy Stores and
bought two string vests.
When I stepped out
onto the track I had this string vest on, these shorts on and bare feet — there
was a gasp from the crowd.
What was the reason
for running with bare feet? Were there no trainers good enough?
The main reason for
me was the weight — it made such a difference. Akin to this, when I was running
in the Tokyo Olympics I was getting some free shoes from Puma and they were
heavy. So I got in touch with this guy and said, “What I want is a spike, with no
spikes. Just take the spike plate off and put a piece of rubber underneath.”
I got these shoes
made and actually punched holes in them with a leather punch, so they were
ventilated.
But when I broke
the record for the marathon in 1970 I was back working with Reebok and they’d
made me some kangaroo leather shoes that were incredibly light.
Did you have a lot
of say in these?
Oh yeah, it was my
design. It was called the World 10. And then we did another one called the 209
Marathon, which was even lighter still. I guess these were the first minimalist
shoes.
Going back to the
world record, how did that come about?
There’s a story
attached to that. I wanted to get into the European Games marathon in 1969. I’d
got my training regime well sorted out, but three weeks before the actual
marathon was held in Manchester, I’d been invited to run in a race in Helsinki.
So I ran this race.
There were three Ethiopians in the race, and I’m sure their coach had said to
them not to let anyone past — so it started to develop into a bloody fight.
Anytime anyone went up to go past, they got the elbow. One guy, the Olympic
steeplechase champion Gaston Roelants, just threw his arms up and said, “This
is not a race.” When I saw this, I went up to the guy, tapped him on the shoulder
and said, “Any more of this and you’re going to get that,” and showed him my
fist.
We carried on
running, and as we came to five laps and pace was slowing, I thought, “Right,
I’m going to overtake here.” I stepped out to pass him and the next thing I know
I’m on the floor looking up at the floodlights. I get up, and this guy Roelants
had been shoved back into the race by his coach, so as he passed me he said,
“Tuck in behind me, I’ll take you back up to the leaders.” We slowly crept back
up the three of them, and it came to the last lap. There must have been about
200 metres to go so I moved into the outside lane, sprinted like hell and I
beat the three of them.
At first I thought,
“Brilliant,” but then I thought, “Hang on, what’s this squelching noise in my
shoe?” I had a five inch gash down the inside of my ankle and there was only
three weeks to go until this bloody marathon.
There was a doctor
at the stadium and he said, “Come under the stadium, I’ve got a bench there —
I’m going to stitch that back up.” I went with him and he said, “Well, the skin
is dead, you won’t need any anaesthetic.” He stitched it with no anaesthetic. I
still ran the next morning but it was awfully painful. After about ten days I
went to the doctors to get the stitches taken out and he said he couldn’t
because they’d gone septic.
It was a good job I
didn’t have a coach, because no coach would let someone run with stitches,
never mind stitches that were going septic. I just thought, “I’m going to run
this marathon, I don’t care what anybody says.”
Then I went to
Athens, it was a stinking hot day and the tar was melting on the road. For a
drink, what I used to do was put maybe half a spoonful of salt into some
cordial, drink that down in one, and then drink nearly a pint of water. That
was my fuel for a race. I didn’t take a drink in the race, and when I was
coming down the hill to the Olympic stadium I saw this plastic cup on the
floor. I thought, “That’s Roelants, he must be getting bad if he’s drinking
water.” I caught him with one kilometre to go, and I didn’t quite know what to
do because I’d never been in that position before. I just thought, “Sod it, I’m
going.” I went past him and right down this road to the stadium.
A Land Rover nearly
knocked me down doing a U-turn and nearly killed me. Anyway, I won the European
Championship — brilliant. It was in the old stadium and my wife and kids and my
mother and dad were there, it was fantastic.
As I was coming out
of the stadium this guy came up to me who was the boss of the Road Runner’s
Club in England and said, “I say Hill, how would you like to run the Boston
Marathon?”
They had a whip
around in the Road Runner’s Club magazine to pay for my air fare to Boston.
Anyway, they got my money. I was running against a guy who had beaten me
previously, but I’d been doing the glycogen loading diet and had got it to
perfection. We set off and we were head to head. I was blowing my fingers ‘cos
they were so cold and my mesh vest wasn’t doing anything for me.
Anyway, I dropped
him at about six miles and thought, “Jesus, I’ve got all this way to run on my
own now.” He came back and I said something to him like, “Where’ve you been all
my life.” I think that put him off a bit, as he dropped back and soon after he
dropped out. I forged on in the rain and I had no idea what time I was running.
I ended up winning the race — the first Britain to win Boston. This journalist
came up and said, “Oh, by the way, you broke the course record by over three
minutes — you ran two hours ten minutes. That gave me loads of confidence then.
Edinburgh was in
July. I had my rest and I knew what I had to do. I visualised the race for the
first time — I could see the Portobello Power Station and I could see the way
the wind was blowing. The start was like the start of a 1500 metre race. I
think I went through ten kilometres in 28 minutes. I know the old record holder
had said to someone that my pace was suicidal and that I’d never keep it up.
Coming back I knew that I had to look good, so I gave everybody a thumbs up and
kept going. I nearly got an ulcer with the worry of whether I’d be able to keep
going. I did, and in the end I ran 2:09:28, which was a world record.
I’ve had some good
times.
How did that feel —
to hold the world record? It didn’t sound like you expected it.
I was just on top
of my form. I’d done all the right things, including the diet.
Yeah what was that
called? Glycogen loading? What’s that?
A guy called Martin
Hyman who coaches orienteering had read about these experiments some people had
done with cyclists in Scandinavia. They gave one lot a high carbohydrate diet,
another lot a high protein diet and another lot they gave them protein for half
the time, and then carbohydrates for the other half. That last group performed
so much better than the rest. I thought, “What if you use this for a marathon?”
and it bloody well worked. I was so strong at the end of marathons using that
diet.
What would you eat?
I wouldn’t eat any
bread, I wouldn’t eat any pasta and I wouldn’t eat any potatoes. And then after
four days when my body was craving carbohydrates, I’d eat loads of cakes. Then
I’d go back to a more normal diet, making sure there was carbohydrates in it.
What happens is
that when you starve the enzymes in your stomach of carbohydrates, they think,
“What the hell is going on?” and start to multiply to find more. Then when you
pile it back on they go, “Wow,” and start to get it. You get at least a ten
percent increase in your carbohydrate level in your muscles. That’s what you
can use at the end of a marathon.
Well it obviously
worked. I know you said before that hardly anyone was around when you ran your
first marathon in Liverpool. How has the world of running changed since you
first started?
You know the story
of Chris Braser and John Disley? They did the New York marathon and thought,
“We can get this back to England.” In 1981, they started the London marathon,
and it worked. It was a people’s marathon — people saw it on television and
said, “Look at that! If they could do it, I could do it.” And that’s how it
snowballed.
Yeah, the shift
from traditional runners running to normal people running.
Yeah exactly.
Whereas in my first marathon they were just hardened marathon runners — that
was all they did.
You’re probably
what they’d call a hardened runner too. You’ve got the world record for the
longest streak of running every day. When did you start that?
I think it was
December the first, 1964. I was 18th in
the 10,000 and 19th in
the marathon at Tokyo. I was the second fastest marathon runner in the world,
and I blew it. I couldn’t stand being away from home — I just went to pieces.
When people say they were petrified, I know how they feel. Spending time away
from family doesn’t work from me. I knew I was far better than that, and I was
going to get the best out of myself.
I’ve got a couple
of sayings — one is, “Leave no stone unturned in your endeavours to be the best
you can be.” So I ran once the next day, and then I ran twice the day after. I
ran twice a day and once on Sunday for 26 years without missing a run — and
thinking about all those races I told you about, it did pay off.
I just kept looking
— the diet, the mesh vest, the bare feet, the minimalist shoes — and it worked.
You obviously
considered every single part of it.
I used to read a
lot — a hell of a lot. I’d go down to the second hand bookshops at Shudehill in
Manchester and read stuff about diets there. I’d find out about green
vegetables and the trace elements in them that your body needs, and think,
“Well, I’ll make sure I’ll get those.” So yeah, I did think about it very much,
think how I could be the best I could be.
Going back to the
everyday running thing, has there ever been times when you’ve not been able to
go out?
Having the streak
is a motivation. It was a big decision to come down to running just once a day,
but it worked because I was getting very tired. I wouldn’t want to miss a run,
I’d feel like I was a failure if I did. People say, “What if you feel really
bad?” I say, “Look, all you’ve got to do is get your kit on, go to the front
door, open it and go out. Within five minutes you’ll be fine.”
And it’s true. Just
get out there and you’ll be fine.
Haha, that makes
sense. When do you think you’ll stop?
I’ll just keep
going. When they nail me in the box, that’ll be it.
