Runner Profile: Tom Stephens

I’d like to thank Darren for nominating me. And I wish I could cook as well as I can run.

School days

At primary school the track we ran on was only about 60m. So that was probably the furthest I ever ran. I wasn’t the best, I think first and second got a packet of crisps, I often finished 3rd but never won the crisps. My family were very keen walkers so I became quite accustomed to walking for 2 or 3 hours. I think when uncles, aunts and grandparents visited there was something of a competition to show which side of family could come up with the longest walks! When my brother and I were pretty young if we needed to hurry along on foot Dad would encourage us to alternate, running for 100 paces then walking for 100 paces, but the idea of running for longer distances wouldn’t have entered my mind.

The focus of sport at primary school was on the two school teams, netball for girls and football for boys. When I was 9, in the penultimate year at the school my one aim in life was to get into the football team. I was fairly confident that there would be a place in the team for me in my final year. Then the position of goalkeeper unexpectedly became available. I went for it because it was a chance to get into the team. Then the leader who ran the cub scouts’ football team heard about this, he hadn’t got a goalkeeper and there was a friendly match that weekend, would I play? Of course I did! I made at least one glaring error in that game but somehow I saved a penalty. I played for both teams for a year before I left, the teams were fairly successful but for me the big success was getting in the team.

When I went to secondary school (Thorpe) there were two football teams for the year group and I was the third best goalkeeper, so that fizzled out.
But it was at this point that my running started at the age of 11. Cross country came first, the furthest we went was about 4 miles as everyone had to be able to get around the distance in an hour and I think the shortest route was under 1500m. But this seemed like a very long way to run compared to what I was used to.

When I started at Thorpe in 1980 it was mainly on roads but included some proper cross country, running along footpaths and routes over ploughed fields which weren’t even footpaths. By the time I did my O levels (GCSEs) in 1985 it was still called cross country but it was purely road running. This was partly because a bridge we used was demolished but probably also to do with the increased popularity of road running and perhaps some health and safety considerations. A games teacher talked about running more often to get better at it and I started doing this, but probably not very well and I didn’t have running shoes. Most cross country runs were run as single gender but occasionally we ran with the girls and I remember getting chicked for the first time, which was somehow worse because she was wearing a hockey skirt rather than shorts!

When the summer athletics season came around we did distances up to 1500m on a grass track, some boys found this frightening but it was shorter and easier running than the cross country. My strong point in athletics was the long jump, I won this at the sports day 3 years running. I represented the school at long jump and also sometimes in the 4×100m relay. I don’t think I was one of the 4 best sprinters but I was already there for the long jump and the fourth best runner was unlikely to turn up just to do the relay. On one occasion only two schools entered teams for the relay, we came second, and should have been disqualified as one of our runners started in the wrong place but our result was allowed to stand. The following morning in assembly the headmaster read out the sports results, and said well done to the relay team who managed to come second!

Things changed a bit when my brother started at Thorpe two years after me, he represented the school at cross country and we used to run together in the evening and at weekends. He always talked about 7 minute miles, which he said we were managing, I used to agree but I don’t think we were, but back then we had no way of knowing. I had it in my mind that I should be able to do a Marathon in 4 hours, I didn’t try but this figure stuck with me, my brother said it should be quicker than that. Mum banned us from running in long bottoms as she was getting too much mud and grit in the washing machine, but this was no hardship as we had to run in shorts at school.

One of my proudest sporting moments was the one rugby match I placed for the school. The school team were due to play Wymondham College who were outstanding at rugby and were going to win by a huge margin. Almost all of our rugby team pulled out of the game. So the numbers were made up by non rugby playing boys, we must have been the worst team to ever play for the school, we lost by a huge amount to zero. We got clapped off the pitch by the other team and much to my surprise led into a room where there was a great feast for the teams.

By the final two years before O levels I loved cross country at school and wanted to do more of it. On one occasion we were doing trampolining, I asked the teacher if I could do a run instead and he said no, so after that when it was trampolining I didn’t ask, I just ran out of the school gate and did the longest cross country route, I’ve always wondered what action would have been taken if I’d been caught.

In the sixth form, games wasn’t on our timetable but we could join the fifth years if we wanted, I was one of several who did for football, and I was the only one who did for cross country.
In football I was back in the school team, we didn’t have a sixth form team but any sixth formers who wanted to were allowed to play in the “first team” which was also made up of fourth and fifth years. Us sixth formers were terrible especially as we developed a habit of occasionally going to the pub at lunchtime, where we would sometimes see some of the teachers! But I scored my first and only goal for the school team at the age of 17 in the upper sixth, well over a year after most of my age group had left school and over 7 years after my first game as a goalkeeper. When I was at school I didn’t think my sporting achievements were very good compared to my friends, but now I’m aware that they were much more than many other FRR people, some of whom are now much better athletes than me. By the sixth form I was definitely wearing running shoes, by chance my first two pairs were New Balance and since then I’ve developed a habit which I don’t think I could break now, every pair of running shoes I’ve had for at least 37 years have been New Balance, I currently have 9 pairs which are in use or ready to be used when needed (this doesn’t include retired ones or fashion trainers). If anyone tells me it’s wrong to have 9 pairs of running shoes then I’ll have to agree with them, and buy some more!

At about this time I took part in the Sport Aid charity run and the Norwich Half Marathon, probably in 1986 or 1987, I have no idea what my time was. But organised events were very rare for me.

Between then and now

Running continued for me when I left school and home. I wasn’t really a runner, more someone who went running. I didn’t eat or sleep properly, I didn’t do any other exercise. And I didn’t do any stretches, when I started running at school it wouldn’t have been a good idea to bend over in case someone behind you did something you didn’t want with a javelin! I also didn’t have any running kit other than the shoes, just T shirts and shorts from wherever I bought them. My FRR vest is the first proper running top I’ve ever had. But if I was compared to other people who just went running I might have been one of the best, if I was compared to runners, I definitely wasn’t.

The following years consisted of lots of me running on my own, as my brother dropped out of running and none of my friends were interested. My brother comes back to running occasionally and quite annoyingly can keep up with me even though he doesn’t take it seriously, he could be a really good runner. But his main involvement in running now is to tell me that I’m not as good as I should be. I should have joined a running club but this didn’t even occur to me at the time.

Other hobbies and interests I’ve had at different times have come and gone but running has always been with me. As far as sports are concerned, I would often cycle to get to places, at one time I used to cycle 6 miles to work. And I was quite good at darts, but I don’t think that counts here. There was one major weakness in my running, more about that later. I can remember, from each place where I lived the routes which would get me out of Norwich and later Ipswich to get me into the countryside with as little traffic fumes as possible. Avoiding all main roads, taking residential streets, parks and recreation grounds until I got into the fresh air. As the years went by I gradually moved towards trail running and away from running on country roads.

In 2003 I took part in only my third ever organised running event, an almost official race, the Stiperstones Dawdle or Dash in Shropshire. It’s 5k, it starts off as a fairly gentle incline then becomes increasingly steeper, in the first 2.5km you go up 250m and then come straight back down again, on rocky footpaths where you could easily break an ankle, there’s a tot of whisky at the top if you want it but keen runners don’t stop for that. The marshals don’t come from a running club but from a caving and mining club, and it takes place on Boxing Day. I’d love to do it again but I don’t have family over there now and it being Boxing Day makes it difficult.
As the years moved by I have noticed changes in what I take with me. The early years were long before mobile phones, running watches or apps. All I took was a key and sometimes if I had no pockets I tied it into my shoelaces. As we moved into the mobile phone era I used to run without one, and getting away from my phone for a while was something I liked.
Eventually I started taking my phone with me. Both to use a running app and to listen to music. It took me a long time to start using a running watch which has lead to a return to running lighter and now occasionally I tie my key into my shoelaces again, and I’ve also realised that when I’m running in the country I should be listening to the birds singing, not music.

About 5 years ago I started getting a bit keener. I started using Endomondo so for the first time ever I knew how far and fast I was running. And I think this encouraged me to do better, I was running about 4 times a week. Friends would tell me that I should join a running club but I would have been doing it for the wrong reasons.

Finally getting more serious

Then in lockdown everything seemed to change. I was on furlough and wanted to get out of the house as much as possible. So I went running every day, doing the half marathon distance about twice a week, eventually I did the marathon distance in under my 4 hour target on Strava but that doesn’t count as it wasn’t an organised event. I was paranoid that I would be caught breaking lockdown rules, even that Endomondo would be checked to catch me!

At this point, just when running club events weren’t possible I started to want to join a running club for the right reasons. When the 2020 virtual London Marathon happened I went running with the intention of accompanying some of the participants if they wanted it, I was thinking perhaps for about a mile each and then changing to accompany a different runner, I thought there would be plenty of runners around the seafront. But I didn’t get far before I met a man who was on his way back to Ipswich, I ran with him, and then a lady who was heading in the same direction. I got nearly as far as Sainsbury’s before I doubled back which was much further than I meant and I didn’t find anyone to run back with. The man was in Jaffa and after talking with him I decided to join FRR and also switch from Endomondo to Strava.

The major weak point in my running I mentioned was that I wasn’t normally interested in running in the winter. I’d look at Endomondo in February and see that I’d only run about twice since September. Except I love running in extreme weather conditions, on the hottest days when it’s too hot and the challenge is just to keep running. I also love running in the snow so I’d always do that. Way back in 1987 there were snow drifts in Norfolk but I wasn’t going to let this stop me doing my route, so I ran on top of the snow drifts which was level with the tops of the hedges; this was amazing. At 17 you do crazy things like that but it really wasn’t a good idea, if things had gone wrong I don’t think anyone would have found me until the snow melted. I still run in the snow but drifts like that are very rare, would I run on top of them again? I’ll try to say no, but I’m not sure. So as the winter came on in 2020 I made the effort to keep running.

When Tuesday training evenings started again I went and really enjoyed them. Before that I had thought my running was ok but I was nervous that I might not be good enough and I’d be left behind. So I was very glad to be able to keep up with the pack, and enjoyed being part of the yellow running pack. But I had a lot of trouble recognising people, I’m terrible with people’s names anyway. But everyone looked the same in the dark. Almost everyone was in yellow, almost all the ladies had ponytails and were wearing dark running bottoms. The men were wearing shorts or mainly dark running bottoms, and everyone had an athletic figure. So it looked like everyone had been cloned from just four people!

I got a bit of an injury in 2021, perhaps because I had been running so much in lockdown. This led me to cut down my running quite a bit and slowly get back into it, now I don’t think the injury was too much to worry about, but that cutting my running back has had a bad long term impact. I did Ian’s Virtual Parkruns, and I knew that I would do the real thing when it started. I don’t like committing to things in advance, so just turning up at Parkrun suits me down to the ground. I’ve only missed one since they started again after lockdown, and that one really annoys me. I try to do my bit by volunteering, unfortunately I don’t do much on a Saturday, just a bit of scanning occasionally as I want to run, but I volunteer for the juniors, and especially doing that on a Sunday before a race makes a perfect running day for me.

Even when races came back it took me a while to do any. The Round Norfolk Relay really appealed to me, but I was worried I wouldn’t be good enough, I didn’t need to worry as FRR don’t run it that competitively. It was great to be part of a team which got the baton all the way around Norfolk, unfortunately I didn’t realise how much I enjoyed it until my leg was over. This was my first official race for about 34 years.

The Winter Cross Country Series was made for me just like parkrun, as you just turn up on the day, I knew I would do all of them but I still wouldn’t have wanted to enter in advance.

Fairly early in 2022 I realised that I would have to do that difficult thing of entering races in advance. After a little discussion with a few people a good option seemed to be to do the Suffolk Grand Prix events (although I had missed Tarpley) and the Friday Five Series this was a good plan for me as once I had started I would want to do the rest of the series. The Kirton Friday Five might have been the best race of my life, living so near it I ran and walked the course continuously for about two months so I knew every part of the route, which side to run on the farm track, and what shoes to wear if it had got muddy before the race. How long every hill was, at what point they got steeper or shallower and especially towards the end, exactly how far to the finish. I completed Kirton in under 35 minutes, meaning I had exceeded my brother’s 7 minute mile target from years before. But I think I knew what he would say before I told him, he said 5 miles is not far enough, you’ve got to do 10 miles at that pace for it to count! But the Bungay 10k might have been my most successful, due to other people doing other races I was the 3rd FRR man to finish, to make up the team, the three of us were all over 50 and we came second in the team standings against much younger runners. In a similar way at the Woodbridge Ekiden I was extremely proud to get into the fast over 50s team, but at the same time knew that as I was in it the team couldn’t be very strong. And coming right up to date at the Thurlow 5 I was pleased to contribute a few points for the Club in FRR’s hugely successful Grand Prix results.

I did the Round Norfolk Relay again this year and found a way to make it even better. I did some of the cycle support after my leg, which meant I could focus on the runner carrying the baton ahead of me and think that I’d just done that, enjoying it after I’d finished, but still involved.

I achieved ok-ish positions in my age group in the cross country league, the Friday 5 league and the Grand Prix league. Not really good enough to boast about, but if someone tried to say I’m no good at running, my results would be good enough to shut them up!

Present and future

Lately my motivation has really been poor, I haven’t been running anything like the distances I should and this can be seen in my performance. I might have turned a bit of a corner and be moving on from that. But I do have a bit of a plan to see if I can help some other people with pacing or even slipstreaming at parkrun, which might help improve my pride in running and my motivation even before my speed improves.

Hopefully the future will be more of the present with slightly better running. More Round Norfolks, cross countries, Friday 5s, Grand Prix events, parkruns, Tuesday & Friday training evenings and hopefully this won’t be stopped by injuries.

Next month’s nomination

I’d like to nominate Neil Winton to do next month’s profile.