Elvet Striders

Strider Chat: Interview with our Men’s Captain, Michael Littlewood

I was delighted to interview Michael. He has a very impressive running history as you will see, as he has gone from couch to England vest! His ambition, focus and determination are inspiring.

When did you start running and why?

I started running in 2014 because I was overweight. So, it was to lose weight. It was part of dieting. I was 18 ½ stone and was classed as obese. Another reason I started was similar to why a lot of runners start, I was suffering from depression as well. It was to get fit, lose weight and make myself happier. I had not done any sport before then in my life, other than a bit of football, a little bit of running at school. I had also ran the Great North Run with my Mam at the age of 12…. I was still definitely a ‘non-runner’ and very unfit. I actually started running on 1st January 2014, because it was a New Year’s resolution. I have now been running for eight years!

I started simply. I looked at the clock on the wall, did a 4.5-mile loop, ran it, got in, looked at the clock, it was about an hour later, thought ‘ah that’s good’. Then I went out the next day, did exactly the same loop, looked at the time again and I wasn’t any faster and I was a bit disappointed! Because I expected a change in 24 hours (he laughs). I then did that four days in a row and then realised I couldn’t run on the fifth day. I had no idea about running! So, I had a day or two off because I couldn’t walk, then I just did the same thing again. I found it really hard. I kept on running four times a week. I threw myself in at the deep end. I wouldn’t recommend this to anybody.

Then I started reading a bit about it, finding out you needed a long run and a short run. I had a four-and-a-half-mile loop and a six mile loop which was my long run. I didn’t do any quality work. I then did a couple of half marathons and 10k. The first half marathon I did was in the April. It was the Sunderland half marathon. I was wearing that many clothes. I had jackets on and coats and base layers on. I had no idea about pacing. I didn’t have a watch. I was aiming for under 100 minutes, and I think I did 92 minutes. At one point, the guy running next to me said I’d be on for 88 minutes, but I hadn’t planned for the last three miles, so I got slower. I learned from that.

I really wanted to do the Great North Run properly and have a time target for it. It was my second half marathon, and I did it in 1:26. I did my first marathon straight after that, at Kielder. I learnt a lot of lessons there. My longest training run had only been 14 ½ miles, so I was undercooked. I thought I was big and clever after the Great North Run. I had no respect for the distance. I think I went through halfway in 90 minutes, after doing 86 minutes in the Great North Run. Second half: two hours. I had a lot of problems there. I got over the finish line in 3:30 hours, which is quite respectable for Kielder, it’s a tough course, especially for a first marathon!

Tamsin: Three and a half! Most people would be very happy with that!

Michael: (He laughs) But I should have run it a lot cleverer. I remember the last four miles I could hardly move. I learnt my lessons.

When did you join Elvet Striders?

In 2014 I lost a lot of weight quickly, I lost 7 stone in 6 months. As I was dieting and running. It was definitely not the right way, I would not recommend that. I was a lot happier though and never looked back. Wendy started saying to us, “What are you going to do after a year of running?” I said “Well, I will keep running and after a year if I still like it, next January I will join a running club”. Also, I did want to get faster. I was competitive. I had talked to a guy after the Great North Run who had done it in 1:22 and I was wowed by that. I thought what do I need to do to do that? So, I joined Elvet Striders 1st January the next year (2015).

I turned up to my first session at Striders and there was so much snow it was nearly snowed off. It was a short 5 miler round the town. I didn’t know anyone in the club when I joined. I turned up, stood in the entrance of Maiden Castle with about 100 people, as everyone used to meet there at the same time then. Really nervous. The first person I talked to at the club was Andrew Davies.

Then I went to track sessions. I got wrong off Allan Seheult within the first few months, cos I used to just turn up and run really fast, as fast as I could and then be really worn out halfway through the session. Allan pulled us to one side and said, “Michael it’s not a race you know, it’s a track session.” But I was like, “It is! I’m coming down for a race, I’m racing people!”

Then, Wendy was nice enough to buy me a Steve Cram training weekend in February. I went to this weekend, it was up in Kielder. I learnt so much that weekend at all the lectures. But the more important surprise was on my drive home, Wendy rang me to tell me she could get me a London Marathon place through work (she works at Virgin Money who sponsored the marathon, and they held a friends and family ballot). It was that April. I said “Well, I’ve no idea if I can but I’ll do it anyway”. So next week at Striders I was into marathon training!

I had about six weeks to get ready! I was talking to people at Striders about marathon plans. I had a target in mind, which was sub-3. I loosely worked out from plans that I needed to do 5 long runs of about 20 miles each within the training plan. So that’s what I did. When I started doing that, I realised I needed some rest days. I used to have Monday and Tuesday off, cos I was broken after doing the long run. I used to go to track on the Wednesday, do my fast parkrun when I could. Although my target was sub-3, I had a second target which was sub-3:05, because 3:05 was Good for Age (I wanted to be able to qualify for a Good for Age place for the following year). That was my ‘B’ target. So, me, Wendy and the boys went down to London! That was one of my first great achievements. I got 2:59:51. I got in by 9 seconds. It was a tough, tough marathon. I ran it well. It was an eye-opener on how hard marathons are, even when they are flat. I thought it was going to be easy compared to Kielder, but no, it’s just a different type of hard.

Tamsin: I agree. There’s no change in rhythm during a flat road race, it’s the same muscles constantly, no break.

Michael: Exactly.

Tamsin: So when did you think, hang on, I might have some talent with running?

Michael: Never thought that really. I had ambitions to get things. I ran on a bit with the club, then a couple of months after that I was approached by Allan Seheult to run in his small, coached group – the ‘Fast Lads’. It used to be on a Monday night and 10-12 people would go to that. He offered to give me a coaching plan and I started being coached by him. He gave me a weekly plan. He continued to coach me after that for all my races. Allan got a lot out of me that first year. I always had bigger ambitions than my ability would allow. I wanted to aim for a sub 2:45 in the London Marathon the next year. My goals were always marathon times. I didn’t quite achieve it, I got 2:47. It was said that training for a year with Allan you might hope for a 12-minute improvement, which I had done more or less. It doesn’t sound a lot but it’s nearly 30 seconds a mile pace faster. I also improved my half marathon time by eight minutes. It was Allan’s structured and consistent training that did this. It made a lot of difference to me as did his friendship and support. I have never since been able to find someone to coach me so well.

How many marathons have you raced now?

To date I have raced hard, 15, but probably ran 30 in total. My favourite route has been the Boston marathon. It’s just such an amazing atmosphere. Yellow American school buses take you to the start, which is at a big American school. You wait there for an hour, where there is some entertainment. Then you walk half a mile to the start line. The route is linear and goes through seven American towns all the way to end in Boston city. Every town is just full of support for you, better than London support, and London is amazing. You see movies about New England and see roads with leaves getting blown across the roads, and it was exactly that. And it had a bit of everything, down hills and uphills and beautiful views. Cityscape at the end. You go past skyscrapers. It was just amazing. Made all the more incredible by having a big group of Strider friends and family share the experience.

What are your proudest running achievements?

You know what, last week I ran for England, and that should be my greatest achievement, I loved it. I loved qualifying for it, even though it was an horrendous marathon (The Milton Keynes Marathon). The Milton Keynes Marathon was a horrible course, like running Durham parkrun eight times. I exceeded my target and got 2:41. A weird experience though, this was the first marathon I had raced without any friends or family actually there as it was still under lockdown conditions and a staggered start.

Running for England, it was a brilliant day and an amazing achievement. But I think the thing that equals that is the London Marathon. I got sub-2:45 in 2017 which was British Championship time. In 2016 I had run 2:47. I put a lot of mental effort into the race. It was probably the hardest I have ever run and the most I have ever hurt myself in a race. Again, it was another race where I made it by seconds, I got 2:44:51. I look back at that and it still makes me emotional thinking about that now, I went through turmoil to get that. I knew I would never run as hard as that again. I went to a really dark place at points along the course.

Some races, stars align, and this is what happened at Kielder one year – 2019. Usually every year, I train hard for London and then hard for Kielder, but this one year I decided not to train as hard for Kielder. I just did my normal training. I was running the race, and I was in 4th place, but at about 6 miles in, people started to come past me and I went down to 18th place. I got to 12 miles in and thought, no, no more are going to come past Michael, you are just going to stick with the next person and just see how far you can last. The next guy came alongside, and I thought, he’s running faster than you but just try and keep up with him. And keep up with him, I did. I got to 18 miles, round the bay and there was a climb and he just fell off pace. I thought I’m just going to go past you here, and he just fell off us. I ran to the dam wall and saw the leading lady ahead, I thought, right I’m going to catch her. She was maybe 200m ahead. I caught her and went ahead. Then I saw some other people ahead and thought, okay let’s see if I can catch them, and I just started passing people. Something just clicked in my brain, and I was running about 30 seconds per mile quicker than I was running earlier. I went from 18th and finished 4th. I looked back at the stats and saw I was the fastest person in the last eight miles of that race on that day. The year before I had trained really hard and done it in 2:59. Well, this time I did it in 2:54. My ambition at Kielder was always to finish on the podium, and that time most years was good enough to finish on the podium, (seeing as both my sons have in their junior races!!). It’s just that year people were a bit faster, but I thought, how I ran that marathon, the stars aligned and it’s probably my greatest ever run.

So, don’t get me wrong, running for England was a massive achievement and I will put a photo from that in a frame on the mantelpiece, but my greatest marathon was that time at Kielder. I have never felt so strong in the second half of a marathon.

You mentioned the mental toil of a hard race. How do you recover from that, or would advise runners to recover from that, from your experience?

I always give myself 4-6 weeks to recover physically after a marathon. Following that, for 2-3 months I may race, and run hard, but I don’t run so hard that I hurt myself. I call these B races. I allow myself to have bad races. Always after London is the Pier-to-Pier race, and I call it my ‘shit’ race. I still run hard, but I don’t dig deep. I go nowhere near any serious pain. I think as well, you’ve only got so many races you can hurt yourself in mentally. I think you only have so many marathons in you that you can race that hard.

What has been your worst running experience?

That was the London Marathon in October. I’ll give you a little history into it which starts at the beginning of 2021.

I trained really hard at the start of the year hoping for a spring marathon although due to COVID restrictions, this would be unlikely – I was really only doing the training to keep Stephen company who was working towards his upcoming Elite Cheshire Marathon.

Corrine said to me, ‘Why don’t you do the Milton Keynes Marathon? It’s a qualifying race for England.’ It was 8-9 weeks away and seemed possible to go ahead. Also, Stephen had faith in my ability and also suggested I do it. I thought, “Hold on, I’ve just done a marathon plan, so I’ll do that”. So, I put in my entry. Then it was postponed due to Covid to the end of June. So basically, I ended up marathon training for 22 weeks, but the consequence was although yes, I had peaked a little early, I had done 20 weeks of long runs, 20 weeks of tempo running, 20 weeks of 80-90 miles, I was in the shape of my life. I hit 5k and 10k times I had never dreamed of. I am not at that level now. Got to Milton Keynes, I did 2:41 but I was in 2:38 shape.

Then I made some mistakes. I was recovering well, but after 4 weeks we went to Jersey on holiday and I decided to do the Round the Rock Ultra (47 miles and 7,000ft ascent – a lap of the circumference of Jersey). It was too soon. I said I was going to run it slowly but I ended up running hard, got in the top ten, got a gold medal, really happy with that. Then I went into proper recovery and didn’t run for two weeks.

But then the week after it was the Great North Run. I thought, right, I can still do a half-marathon. So, I ran that, I was actually running quite well, but got to the last mile and a half and I got cramp in my hamstring. I’ve never had cramp in my whole running life – clearly a sign of fatigue. I hobbled in, thought, “Right what am I going to do? I’ve got London in a few weeks”. I wrote off being able to get a good time. I wasn’t being stupid; I wasn’t going to London to run fast. I was just going to run hard. I lasted 13 miles then the cramp came back. I had to jog in for the remaining 13 miles. I went through the thought process of dropping out. But what was in my head, was once you’ve stepped off a race, I think it gives you that mental option in the future to do it again. I normally run marathons in 6 min miles, I was now running 8 min miles and everyone was coming past. That was because I was stupid that year. I just did too much. It was a great year, but after Milton Keynes I should have just gone into recovery. Doing an ultra, then a half, it was too much. After London it cost me. I was only just coming back in January 2022, but then got Covid, then I was just playing catch up since then. It has affected my running, but I am slowly starting to make progress now.

Tell me about how you became Men’s Captain.

Bullied into it (he laughs). I originally had no interest in it. Then one day I got six messages asking me if I would fancy it. That planted a little seed in the brain. I talked to Wendy, and she said, “Are you sure?” I said I’d do it if she helped me. So, it was kind of thrust upon me. But I honestly have to say I think it’s the best thing I have ever done. I have loved it.
I love supporting people and seeing others improve. I also like the pressure of having to set an example – it gives me more focus and ambition to keep on running hard as I also expect it of others. But I will say I think all Captains have a shelf life, so one day somebody else is going to have to come and do it.

What is the qualifying time to get into the England Marathon Masters team?

They don’t have a specific time as such. In a qualifying race, they will take the first five finishers in every age group. This year at Manchester, the first five were all sub-2:40. That was a high standard. At Milton Keynes the field was easier, I think I came 1st in my age group. You just have to be lucky, as it depends on who turns up. I was in the 45-49 age group. It goes all the way up to >85 years. There was a gentleman I met at Milton Keynes who broke the over 60 British marathon time and ran it in 2:39!

After you have qualified for England, you can then enter another qualifier to enter the World Masters age group marathon race. This may be held anywhere in the World. You can do this for 10k, half-marathon, marathon, and cross country. The Elvet Striders who have done this before include Stephen Jackson who ran for England for cross country. Anyone can try running for England, you just go to the England Athletics website to find out where the qualifying races are. If you qualify you can then run in home nation races.

Tamsin: Are you allowed to wear your England vest at any race?

Michael: Yes!

Tamsin: Make sure you wear it at parkrun!

Michael: I’ve got two vests, shorts but I didn’t buy the whole shell suit or anything like that as it was going to be too expensive. But when I turned up at London some people had bought the whole kit! I could still go back at the end of the year and buy it all (he laughs).

What are your future running goals?

My future goals are to run a sub-2:40 marathon and a sub-1:16 half marathon. I want to complete the Abbott World Marathon Majors. This is running all six high profile city marathons; London, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, New York and Tokyo, to compete in an age group competition to qualify for the Wanda Age Group World Championships. Your best two times from the six marathons are used to qualify. All runners that complete all six marathons win a six-star medal. I aim to help Striders win as many competitions as possible including the cross-country harrier league. My final goal is to be one of the fastest 50-year-olds in England.

What advice would you have for other runners?

First one, and this is a borrowed phrase from a podcast, but I believe in it, is “Trust in the process”. It’s consistency that makes you better. Consistency and having a plan. It’s the long game, doing your long runs, doing your speedwork.

Secondly, most of the time, don’t run too fast. There are people that run 80/20, I don’t follow that, but when I am not doing my track, parkrun or tempos, I am running slow. I am not struggling, I can chat.

Thirdly, what works for me, tempo runs are a big part of running. Whatever race you are aiming for, run tempos at that pace. I did 20 weeks where I would be running my target marathon pace, anything from 5-12 miles. My target pace for Milton Keynes was 6-minute miles. So, I would run 10 miles in an hour. I would run 12 miles in 1 hour 12 minutes, or 5 miles in 30 minutes, but on the shorter tempo runs I wouldn’t run quicker because I could, it would still be 6-minute miles. It’s not about running fast, it’s about controlled pacing, getting the body used to that pace. Then when I was doing a track session, then I would run faster. I would be going really hard.

Fourthly, run your own race. Follow your own time goal. Don’t run someone else’s race, don’t follow someone, or chase them. You’ll just blow up. I’ve seen some Striders run their own race really well. Graeme Watt, he will let everyone else go in a 10k, then he drops the hammer at three miles to go, reels them all in, and goes from 8th to 1st Strider, I’ve seen it happen. He is mentally strong enough to run his own race.

Michael’s PBs (as they stand on 11th October 2022)

• parkrun/5k: 17:21
• 5 miles: 28:31
• 10k: 34:23
• 10 miles: 58:30
• Half marathon: 1:17:36
• 14 miles: 1:25:02
• 20 miles: 2:05:.05
• Marathon: 2:41:59

In 2021 Michael had the fastest 5k, 10k, and marathon age group (V45) times in the Northeast. He ranked as the fastest V45 male in the Northeast.

In 2022 he has the fastest marathon age group time in the Northeast, and placed well in other distances, so is still ranking fastest male V45 in the Northeast!

Thanks so much Michael for sharing your running experience with us and for your time. Thanks for all you do for the club within your role as Men’s Captain, it is appreciated.