Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.
“To believe this story you must believe that the human race be one joyous family, working together, laughing together, achieving the impossible. Last Sunday, in one of the most trouble-stricken cities in the world, 11,532 men and women from 40 countries in the world, assisted by over a million black, white and yellow people, laughed, cheered and suffered during the greatest folk festival the world has seen.” Chris Brasher’s article in the Observer 1979 after completing the New York Marathon the first and at the time the only mass marathon of its kind.
Brasher came to prominence
With the four minute mile
Pacing Roger Bannister
Who brought it home in style.
But was through the Marathon
He really influenced me
Opening up the distance
To ordinary blokes like me.
It was once a race for athletes
Late in their career
We mere mortals wouldn’t run
We’d just be there to cheer.
Brasher ran and was inspired
By that race in New York.
He brought it back to London
And this transformed our sport.
It was nineteen eighty one
They ran it the first time
When Beardsley and Simmonson
Joined hands on the line.
I watched it from the sofa
Recovering from bad knees
Still in slow recovery
With physiotherapy.
But I determined then and there
It was something I would do
And completed my first London
In nineteen eighty two.
Then began the running boom
The whole thing just took off
Suddenly the running thing
Accessible to us.
It became a lifestyle
A big thing in my life.
I ran London five times more
And hoped to bust three hours.
Of course I never made it
Three fifteen my best
But running makes me feel good
It helps to swell my chest.
The race grew exponentially
It really is huge now
And of course the charities
All benefit as well.
So raise a glass to Brasher
A man who influenced me
And opened up the marathon
To all us ordinary.
Andrew Green's Poems 