The African assault on middle and long distance running was heralded by Abebe Bikili, an Ethiopian who, running barefoot as he had done in his youth travelling many miles at high altitude to school, won the Marathon Gold Medal in the 1960 Rome Olympics in a world record time. Joggers the world over wanted to wave a flag saying that they had done it too. When I say ‘joggers’, that would be just the male of the species; it was not until 1984 that women were deemed capable of undertaking such a physically demanding, not to say un-ladylike, occupation and challenge.
So by 1964, with running of various distances having become my forte, indeed my only serious recreational outlet at school, I was ready to give it, or something close to it , a try. I have never kept a diary apart from a catalogue of my ‘tolling’ [ Wykehamist word for running ] efforts from January to March in that year. The diary reads as follows for Tuesday February 25th: 'Southampton and back by myself in 187 minutes. I was determined to do this to prove to myself and others that I could do it and now I am tremendously satisfied and feel a great sense of achievement. No-one can remember it being done before and it is only about 2 miles short of the Olympic Marathon distance. It was in fact 24 miles so average speed was 7 and three quarters mph; 90 minutes there and 97 minutes back.Followed by two Collegemen to Otterbourne and met J Lethbridge on outskirts of Southampton. I did not feel too tired on the way there but, after a stop to post my PC as evidence, I felt very tired and plodded all the way back. Going through Chandlers Ford [ from where I was paced by S.P.L on a bogle ], was my worst piece. Road running is very hard on the feet [ my gym shoes were sticking to them with coagulated blood and had to be cut off ] and the smelly exhaust fumes were almost unbearable.'
To which the reader responds ‘ What a bold and enterprising young man ‘ or ‘ What an odious and pompous little pratt! ‘.
Marathon running then slipped from my bucket list and indeed deserted my consciousness in general until the summer of 1995 when, with knees wobbling and fortitude declining, I received a letter about the 1996 Athens celebratory Marathon. Here is an account written shortly after the event.
THE ATHENS MARATHON 1996
I shall begin where it all began with a man called Haldane
That name itself will be immediately reminiscent of the Liberal Imperialist of a century ago who did much to modernise the British Army in preparation for the First World War. His late twentieth century descendant is an equally forceful sort of fellow, blessed with a delightful family - all of them with idiosyncratic tendencies and therefore living somewhat inappropriately in a charming spot known as Cloan.
It has been my privilege to be responsible for the education of the younger Haldane daughter and over the years I have grown accustomed to receiving cogently argued missives from father Dick on, inter alia, pastoral care and A Level choices. It was with some trepidation therefore that I embarked on a letter from him in October 1995, to be relieved to discover it was chatty in style but with a somewhat perplexing sting in the tail would I run in the Centenary Athens Marathon, over the original course and for a range of most worthwhile charities?
I paused. Blessed with knobbly knees, I knew that I could not participate as a runner but nor did I wish to appear churlish or feeble. I mentioned the matter to Jenny who showed the customary and correct degree of interest for a Headmaster's wife, listening to the prattlings of her husband at the end of another day. However, I took heart and encouragement from this and, without further ceremony or consultation, wrote back to the good Mr Haldane, regretting my inability to take part but passing on the good news that Jenny would be delighted to join him.
Ten days later Mrs Pyper received a letter from the taskmaster saying how pleased he was etc etc. The atmosphere at home chilled a little as the implications were digested and we needed to draw on twenty years of happy matrimony to carry us through. However there were smiles again at least on one side - - when I received my letter, making it clear where my responsibilities lay and that, as several members of a possible 100-strong group would be walking in various states of discomfort, I could join them. How generous!
So serious training began. Jenny, simultaneously daunted, encouraged, stimulated and bemused by detailed and awesome schedules and targets emanating from the Cloan office, started two days after Christmas 1995 and enjoyed the early experience. Without due justification she looked to her husband for guidance on distances and routes, so much time was spent with bits of string and ordnance survey maps and a ruler all a good few miles away from the library of long-distance running books and magazines which interested supporters kindly passed on to us. Mind you, when you still feel young in heart and mind - if not entirely in body - it can be a little disconcerting to receive three copies of "Veteran Runners - Weekly" full of advice for octogenarians on how to prolong active life. Nothing wrong with being 80, mind.
Mark meanwhile reckoned that before he got on the sponsorship trail he should ensure that the task was within his capabilities. The centre of Forres, he discovered, was 13 miles away and on Boat Race day, April 1995, he embarked on the journey, thither and thence. With an arrogance which is characteristic of modern Headmasters, he sought no advice on clothing and, well before half way, was suffering sorely for the decision to wear heavy hill-walking boots. The hard road surface took its toll and the final few miles were completed at little more than a shuffle. Friendship and the parable of the Good Samaritan took on new meaning as cars the drivers of which, although interested clearly averted their gazes - passed by very clearly on the other side.
By early August, with confidence strengthening and enthusiasm growing, our leader summoned us to Auchterarder to take part in a half marathon, meet some fellow runners and generally steel ourselves for the real thing. It was a most pleasant weekend, the hard work was almost incidental, and the building of camaraderie helpful but we realised that we had done only half the job.
The next two months were a period of "serious" running for Jenny. By now the list of those with whom she could be seen bestriding the Morayshire countryside was growing to include pupils (at an earlier stage those in training for the Three Peaks Race), friends and even the real professionals of the Moray Road Runners. While she was busying herself with a local half-marathon, Mark turned his mind to sponsorship.
Having decided that Gordonstoun parents were not fair game unless they happened to be personal friends (and there were surprisingly/disappointingly few in this category), it was a matter of culling every address book in sight, bringing long lost friends back into the land of the conscious and approaching those within the realms of education and others connected with Gordonstoun whose aspirations might be the same as ours. The response was nothing less than magnificent as it has been from our own pupils who, having been subjected to an unusual double act at Morning Assembly, gave generous support of both monetary and moral kinds. It may be some time before they have the Headmaster wearing jeans, a T-shirt and braces for a whole day in School and with Her Majesty's Inspectors present! -
At last departure day, Thursday 17 October, dawned. Half-term started the next morning, but, with cat-like tread, we stole away early just what you are not meant to do at such times. Reward came at breakfast time on Friday when Mark was asked to leave the Dining Room of the East Indian Club in London for being improperly dressed. This was no jeans and T-shirt job but the absence of a tie which caught the attention of the management. This was ironic for one who usually sleeps with a tie on and even had an attractive spotted cravat on this occasion, but no the rules are the rules and Pyper was ejected. How - good to go on learning the lessons of life and know what it is like to be excluded from class when it is "unfair".
So to Heathrow and play the game of spotting our fellow participants. This was actually fairly easy look for the middle-aged, middle-class folk for whom Marathon running would appear entirely out of keeping and you had them in your sights. However, all remaining doubts were removed as we were drawn into warmth and team building towards a young man playing "Happy Birthday to You" and one or two other tunes on the bagpipes.
The flight was hot as was Athens, though not overly so, although the pollution levels have clearly climbed since we were last there over twenty years ago. We dined al fresco and it was immediately apparent who had been taking their training seriously, who was embarking on training at that stage, and who was not to be bothered with training at all.
The next morning, Saturday, and twenty-four hours before the race, disaster struck. Jenny, who had trained for ten months without the merest injury, was having foot trouble. In the heat of the plane her feet had swollen up and walking in tight shoes the night before had produced substantial bumps and blisters. Sightseeing was therefore reduced to shuffling from one open air cafe to another and, as we could not fathom the exchange rate, propping up the Grecian economy by spending hundreds of pounds on orange juice and coffee.
The afternoon saw us on a guided tour of the Acropolis. I remembered my last visit there in 1971, being reminded then that the Parthenon had been built in nine years and that urgent work of restoration was being undertaken. It was the same speech 25 years later but as I looked about me it was very much a case of plus ça change - well, backwards to be honest if there had been any movement at all and, believing that ancient ruined monuments should be just that, we were somewhat relieved. It is also a place where you are wise to avoid mentioning that you come from Elgin or you will be taken to be a neighbour or relative of the good Earl who snatched the marbles and that is serious business.
Jenny's feet had not recovered by evening and I was dispatched to find a physician, a physiotherapist, a fizzy drink -- anything to buy relief and ensure that the next day's nightmare could take place as planned. I moved swiftly from the impressively marble-clad Grand Bretagne Hotel, turned right, right and left hoping to find a chemist's shop selling anti-blister gear. I found myself in a side street, looking obviously lost A small man in a scruffy grev suit approached and appeared keen to help. This was tricky as impending doom to which he responded positively. However I soon began to appreciate that he was indeed keen to provide me with bodily comforts and physical aids but of the living, human kind rather than the sort I intended. Checking there were no television cameras in the obviously red light vicinity, I backed nervously into the shadows.
Fortunately our group of 100 runners and walkers boasted an excellent doctor - a Gordonstoun parent of course - and he came swiftly to minister to Jenny. Never before had we seen a medical man use his sporran for the carrying of medicaments but they were all the better for being there rather than in a black bag for the feet began to ease immediately. After the requisite heavy pasta diet we were off for an early night.
Sleep however was difficult. Was it general apprehension, concern about the feet or a worry that we would sleep through alarm calls and miss the 6.30am bus which would take us to the start? In any case we were wide awake in the small hours and hunger was setting in. Jenny recalled from her voluminous and authoritative reading that bananas were the right sort of food at this stage but the obtaining of such a delicacy at 4am in Athens was not straightforward. I telephoned Room Service and asked "Have you got a banana?"
"A what?" came the troubled reply.
Remembering the very clear enunciation one used to hear on 20 Questions, the animal, vegetable and mineral quiz, "And the next object is a.....", "A ba-na-na" I reiterated.
The response took me aback. "You want a banana, what for?" I had visions of the man in the side street creeping ever closer so we settled on grapes and managed a little sleep before hearing the early call bell very clearly.
The coach journey to the start seemed interminable and, worryingly, all downhill. Upstairs appeared to be a centre of light-hearted merriment; we were down below where the mood was more one of grim determination. We all had to smile however at the start -the historic, famous village of Marathon. Only the Greeks would spurn an opportunity of making the area an attractive place of interest for visitors and tourists. Our fears that we might be in the wrong venue were compounded by the lack of loos -- not a facility to be seen! Soon we enjoyed the strange sight of 3000 scantily clad athletes taking to the fields and hills around to get ready, a trifle ironic when one remembers that the ancient Greeks were meticulous about their preparation for battle.
However there was no opportunity to discuss this as loud piped music blared from every quarter and the starting gun soon went or rather it didn't. A dispute perhaps too strong a term for the friendly environment - a difference arose over where precisely the starting line was and the competitors edged this way and that. It was admirably set up for Lars Porsena with those behind shouting "forward" while those before cried "back". After a good deal of swearing by any number of gods we were indeed off. It was at this stage we appreciated why the International Olympic Committee had been reluctant to award the Games of 1996 or 2000 to the centre of the Hellenic World. Beware, they are trying again for 2004!
The route was straight and straightforward from the countryside through the suburbs and directly into the middle of Athens - more uphill than down which we thought was a bit cheeky and with the air somewhat laden with pollution. Soon after the start however we sere sent on a two-kilometre diversion to the left. "Had Pheidippides got lost at this stage?" we asked ourselves. On discovering that we were routed this way to pass, with due reverence, the mound where the Greek fallen of the battle were buried, we were awestruck. On the assumption that the original runner had indeed passed that way, it seemed remarkable that the bodies should have been transferred there so swiftly after the battle and that the Greeks should be so respectful to their compatriots. As there was no indication as to the whereabouts of the burial mound, it gave those of us at the back of the field something else to wonder at.
About the only common strand running through the performance of the Pypers in this race was that they both started slowly and came through a little in the latter stages. Jenny with feet not troubling her, benefiting from her husband's inability to estimate distances on the map and therefore having done more training than she had realised, reached the halfway mark in just under two hours and completed the second half in only a fraction more (heavy uphill in the third quarter). She accomplished the course without stopping in 4 hours 9 minutes. She ran most of the way with a Frenchman, finished well up, and comfortably in the middle of the field.
Mark, as he had promised his sponsors, wore a tweed suit (admired by a fellow competitor, a Dutchman and a tailor at the start), and Panama hat. Knowing that the road would be long and hard he took an anthology of poetry with him and read from it intermittently throughout the race. He walked with a most charming man from Oxford and they were discussing Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" as they entered the toughest challenge in the course a substantial underpass where danger, fumes and noise came together in vile unison as never before. The line, "Then all smiles stopped together" was particularly appropriate at this stage. Small wonder, someone remarked afterwards, that Pheidippides died having endured that particular torment!
These two gentlemen participants in 1996 amongst the tail-end Charlies found themselves becoming uncharacteristically competitive and picked off fellow non-runners one at a time in the latter stages before finishing in 6 hours 25 minutes. The stadium was almost deserted by this time but there was much warmth of feeling and a final challenge to come. We had battled through pain, tedium and anguish to feel genuine relief and satisfaction at the finish. However, at this very moment of inner glory (suppressed of course) dozens of kind friends appeared, like the Greeks, bearing gifts.
Beer, water, orange, digestive biscuits, chocolate buns and anything else which would normally delight both body and soul, but at that moment one would pay much not even to think about, were pressed upon one as we were back with a bump to face life's dilemmas to be unwell is an unwelcome prospect but to cause offence can be much more serious. The marathon itself was a temporary release from the mainstream of life's vicissitudes and a valuable experience for that. Quite a number of us participating were around 50 years old and it is reassuring to think that we can still tackle something which will be both life-shaping and life-enhancing at our relatively advanced stage.
The hundred of us had an excellent post-Marathon party in the Grand Bretagne afterwards. The volume of food consumed was substantial, reminiscent of one's voracious teenage years. We were presented with such truly magnificent engraved glass trophies and the bagpipes appeared again. There was a tremendously strong feeling of fellowship, friendship and community abroad and a determination that, as the experience had been an excellent one, this would not be the last we heard or saw of one another. There was an excellent speech, reassuringly perceptive, by a former leading spy and another by way of thanks, general appreciation from the other driving force behind the enterprise a splendid man who, with his - wife, appeared to undergo a permanent identity crisis with doubt as to whether they should be addressed as Campbell or John or Shellard or something else again. Several present or former Gordonstoun pupils and four parents, as well as Jenny and I, took part so we allowed ourselves an element of pride and pleasure on behalf of the School too.
To our sponsors we can only say how grateful we are. Over 250 individuals, in addition to many Gordonstoun School pupils, supported our endeavours financially and in the end we raised £8500 which will be divided among the five global educational charities and Cancer Research. We enjoyed ourselves enormously but hope the real beneficiaries will be elsewhere.
And for the future? We were told afterwards that the whole Pheidippides story may be apocryphal and whereas someone bearing his name did exist and was a military runner, he ran in fact from Athens to Sparta before the battle of Marathon in order to beg additional supplies. Would we like to take part in the 153 mile Spartathon next year? You will be relieved to hear that for the moment the joys and rigours of Gordonstoun School are considered quite enough to occupy us.
November 1996
A Marathon’s quite a long run
But claim it’s a great deal of fun;
The cramp and the wall,
Sweat, blisters and all
Will seem like a stroll in the sun.
Athens, however, was a long way from being the end of the story. The restless, indomitable Haldane set his ambitious aspirations yet higher with a potential group relay race round the entire coastline of mainland Britain. And so The Island Race was born, in some respects the forerunner of the Olympic Torch progress of 2012, and it happened due to the energy and meticulous planning on the part of the main player, ably supported by the goodwill and honest endeavor of countless others. My role in this wild athletic extravaganza was to provide a starting and a finishing point at Gordonstoun and to secure the services of the Princess Royal as Patron. Both tasks were delivered without difficulty and this significant socio-sporting event took place, continuously, from early May to late August in 2000. Jenny ran a fine full marathon on the final day with our good friend Kenneth Bews, while I again appreciated the Moray countryside in completing the same distance at a brisk walking pace. Much money was again raised for charity and we all knew that the third millennium AD [ other abbreviations surplus to requirements ] had begun.
Dick Haldane, however, still had not finished. Like a second century Roman Emperor, with Athens and Britain securely conquered, he set his sites on Russia. Deaf he was to persuasion that where Charles XII of Sweden, Napoleon and Hitler had failed, this foray into the most inhospitable of environments was a stride too far, he simply pressed on regardless, made it happen and emerged with many colours flying. By this time my services were no longer required but son Robin, along with more than a handful of former Gordonstounians, enjoyed participation in The Great Russian Race of 2005, while I was delighted to have an excuse to be in St Petersburg for the discreetly triumphant finish.
Dick then, justly rewarded for his remarkable efforts with an MBE, retired from Marathon organizing to care for his herd of rare and handsome cattle in Auchterarder. The rest of us no longer had excuse to ignore the fact that life itself, with the advancing of the years, becomes quite enough of a marathon anyway.
28th August 2023
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