Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
British long-distance runner who ran barefoot, won European 5000m title, broke British records in multiple distances, and competed in Rome Olympics.
On the island
Eight records
Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622: II. Adagio
I've chosen a piece by a Venetian named Mozart.
I think you can tell a lot about a person by what music they like, and I like this.
This is from the film 'Born Free', which I think is a wonderful film.
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D major, Op. 39
This is a very stirring piece of music.
Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 'Pastoral': I. Allegro ma non troppo
I think this is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.
Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30: I. Introduction (Sunrise)Favourite
I think this is a magnificent piece of music, and it's the one I'd save from the waves.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:15You were at Wellington College. How did you do at athletics at school?
Um, well, not very well. I wasn't a star by any means, but it was the one thing which I could do, and I wasn't big enough for Ruggo, and I couldn't see a cricket ball to hit it.
Presenter asks
0:49What did you want to be as a boy?
Um I think I probably wanted to be a novelist first of all. And then uh after seeing Zappek in the nineteen forty eight Olympics I didn't uh rather dreamed of being a runner. Yes. And it inspired me from then on.
Presenter asks
2:40You always ran in bare feet. That sounds very painful running on cinders in bare feet. What was your thinking there?
Um well, it's not really very painful. You get fairly uncomfortable running anyway, you get tired and out of breath and so on. Um and I don't think I've suffered any worse um than people running in shoes who got blisters. In fact, I I very rarely blistered, and I've got fairly big horny feet.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Presenter asks
Ill health kept you out of the Tokyo Olympics. How did you feel about that?
Yes, I think that was my greatest disappointment. I really felt I had a good chance of winning the Olympics in that year. And I I w I'd won the British title and I'd beaten the Americans in 1963 and I won the pre-Olympic meeting in 1963 and the sixty-four season was going very well and then I got measles, a ridiculous thing to get, in in about June and then it was never really the same as the rest of that season.
Presenter asks
4:34You had reservations about going to the Mexico City Olympics and decided not to. Why was that?
Yes, well, as a biologist I knew the effect of running at that sort of altitude, seven and a half thousand feet, and like a lot of distance runners, I thought it was very unfair to have Olympic Games at that altitude. ... it was bound to affect people who couldn't acclimatize, and those people who hadn't been used to living at altitude. It also meant that those people who could afford to train at altitude would have an advantage over those who couldn't afford it. So it was very much um an unfair Olympics.
Presenter asks
5:50Where did you get the idea to run across the United States?
Um, when you Guinness Book of Records for the Yes, I just a friend of mine had the book and I was looking through it and it uh came to me in a flash, they say.
“Um, well, not very well. I wasn't a star by any means, but it was the one thing which I could do, and I wasn't big enough for Ruggo, and I couldn't see a cricket ball to hit it.”
“Um I think I probably wanted to be a novelist first of all. And then uh after seeing Zappek in the nineteen forty eight Olympics I didn't uh rather dreamed of being a runner.”
“Um well, it's not really very painful. You get fairly uncomfortable running anyway, you get tired and out of breath and so on. Um and I don't think I've suffered any worse um than people running in shoes who got blisters. In fact, I I very rarely blistered, and I've got fairly big horny feet.”
“Yes, well, as a biologist I knew the effect of running at that sort of altitude, seven and a half thousand feet, and like a lot of distance runners, I thought it was very unfair to have Olympic Games at that altitude.”
“Um, when you Guinness Book of Records for the Yes, I just a friend of mine had the book and I was looking through it and it uh came to me in a flash, they say.”