Keep on running! C
This month, Julia was literally “running with” when she conducted her interview with “running machine” Chris Finill, a ranked ultra runner and ex-GB team member, who also has the honour of having completed 30 consecutive sub-three hour marathons!
hris Finill arrived one Monday night for running, and we were out the door on an eight-mile run less than 10 minutes later. We had
never met before but the bond of running is a strong one and, as Chris said later, the fact that there is no eye contact – just words and thoughts – means that barriers are broken down within the first few steps. Chris is an Ever-Present at the London
Marathon. This select group of runners is for people who have run a sub-three hour marathon across five decades. Currently, Joan Benoit is the only woman in this select group.
Sub-three from the start
Chris ran his first marathon in 1979 when he was a student in America, then ran the first London Marathon in 1981. His fastest marathon of 2:28:27 was in 1985, but he has continued to knock out sub-threes thereafter, this year achieving 2:51:29, which was slightly faster than last year. He nearly broke his run of sub-three
marathons when he’d got to number 24. Mick McGeogh – another Ever-Present – was injured and Chris offered to run slowly round with him. Thankfully, not running fast was untenable for Mick, and Chris continued with his sub-three run! Chris’s run of sub-three marathons is
now a world record across all the five big master marathons – Chicago, Boston, New York, London and Berlin. “They have been checked out and there is no sequence of 30 other than in London itself, which is also my record,” he says. Chris started running at the age of eight and ran his first cross-country race at 11 years old. He was inspired watching Ron Hill run in the Mexico
42 n RUNNING FREE
Olympics and Dave Bedford running a world record on the track. “I also had good people around me who inspired me. I’ve stayed with the same club, originally called The Old Gaytonians (members came from Harrow County and Gayton High schools), but it became Harrow Athletic Club, now a big London running club.” Chris is now his own inspiration. “I’m
as entrenched as anyone could be with running. I have an enforced habit of training as I don’t have the luxury of finding people available when I want to train,” he says.
The move to ultra
In 1996 Chris turned to ultra running and became an international ultra runner.
He’s run 7:17 for 100k – that’s sub 3:05 marathon pace! He’s made 24-hour running his speciality, achieving an amazing distance of 151 miles which at the time was the furthest by an Englishman for 17 years. It was “curiosity” that turned Chris to
ultras. “I had run heaven knows how many marathons and thought I had better up the stakes,” he explains. He was also drawn to what he believes unites ultra runners, an “obsessive need for challenge.” So, with just 40 miles per week training
Chris ran the 1996 London to Brighton 50 mile cross-country race. “But,” he points out, “I had years and years of running in my legs,” which might explain how he adapted off low mileage to such
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