By Rob Cole
All good things must come to an end, but it has been a long run for Welsh marathon legend Steve Jones.
His winning time in Chicago in 1985 of 2:07.13 has stood as the British record for more than 34 years, but will come under its most serious threat on Sunday at the London Marathon.
It’s not that Mo Farah hasn’t tried to add it to his impressive collection of British records in the past, but this time it is for real. When he dabbled in 2014 he found it hard going, tougher than anything he had every done before.
But since turning his back on a track career that brought him four Olympic gold medals, six World Championship golds and five more from European Championships he has prepared properly for the marathon. His heart is now set on another gold medal at the 2020 Olympics in the 26.2 mile event.
That’s why his performance on Sunday will tell us more about how the 35-year-old is going to fare over the next two years in that quest than anything else he has done. His time in London four years ago of 2:08.21 earned him eighth place, but wasn’t as fast as Jones’ top four times – 2:08.05 in Chicago in 1984, 2:08.16 in London 1985, 2:07.13 in Chicago in 1985, 2:08.20 in New York 1988.
If he doesn’t beat those times this weekend in a race that for the past 21 years has been won in times of less than 2:08, and has a course record of 2:03.05, then you would have to say Farah is probably not going to make it into the top rank of world marathoners. In many ways it is now or never!
Jones will be in London to watch this weekend, just as he was in 2014. He famously won the London title in 1985, despite a ‘pit-stop’ at an underpass at Tower Bridge.
“Everyone thought Mo would turn up and write me out of the record books. I was hoping he would because it would have been good for the sport, but it didn’t happen,” said Jones at the time.
So what should we expect this weekend? You can see Farah, now being coached by Gary Hough, husband of Paula Radcliffe, rather than the controversial Alberto Salazar, stripping at least a couple of minutes off the British record if he gets it right. But will he?
“It’s really hard to get your pacing right in a marathon. You will have a couple of groups the race will break into, and in 2014, to be honest, I thought I could just work my way through from the back. And I remember thinking, ‘I can’t go any faster. I can only keep going’,” Farah told the BBC this week.
“The biggest lesson I learned is to stay patient, and that at some point it’s going to get tough. And then to try to pick up my drinks. You have to stay hydrated, you have to save as much energy as you can.
“I’ve been in worse pain in training, and on the track when things aren’t going as well, but it was a different sort of pain in London.”
No pain, no gain! That was always the Jones mantra. He made it tough for everyone around him and ran has hard as he could for as far as he could. Giving up, as we saw in the European Championship marathon in 1988, was never an option.
Farah’s pain thresholds, and new training patterns, will be tested to the limit this weekend. His medal potential for Tokyo is about to be put under the microscope.
Rob Cole rest assured the record will survive today.