I haven’t posted on my blog for what feels like an eternity. It has
certainly made me realise how much I enjoy writing about running and where I
want to take this blog. I have been coming up with some ideas about I could
develop Running to Some Uncertain Purpose,
but all of these will take time and some patience in how I fit all my ideas
into one coherent shape. It seems to be the trickiest part of running, is
having the patience to keep at something when it begins to create friction
alongside other parts of your life. That has been the main reason for my lack
of presence on this blog- something had to give. A number of work issues popped
up in quick succession and I was left with a choice; keep running and don’t
blog about it or blog about running but don’t engage in a sport that keeps you
physically and mentally fit. My choice was the former, but at that time loads
of things seemed to be happening with my personal running journey as well as within
the running world.
In the world of running it would definitely have to be the allegations of Alberto Salazar
participating in doping and also inhabiting the ‘grey area’ of what is and
isn’t legal in performance enhancement for his athletes. From a UK perspective
these allegations seem to have a global reach, as once again it brings up the
spectre of doping in elite running. Paula Radcliffe has been outspoken in her criticism of
doping in marathon running and it was only at the beginning of this year that Kenya’s Rita Jeptoo
was found to have been doping. There have also been rumours of doping within
ultra-running as well. Also by Salazar being accused of doping it has potential
implications for his two star athletes: Galen Rup and Mo Farah. From
conversations with other runners about this I have found there to be a variety
of views about what the allegations of Salazar mean. For some it just shows
that at the very highest levels of competitive running personal rivalries can
lead to bitter recriminations that eventually spill out into the media, others
think it is the BBC and ProPublica trying to smear one of the world’s best
marathon runners, many people are worried about the damage it will do to the
sport that is not as well funded or widely watched as say football and a few
just want to find out the truth. I would put myself in the last two categories.
Hopefully this will not be running’s version of the Lance
Armstrong scandal. Whatever is going on I think that there should be consideration
about how these allegations are handled (including the people who are facing
the allegations), that if anything untoward has happened then this needs to be
shared in a transparent manner and that we should try to remember the many
positive things running brings to people all over the world. My own view is
that when there is too much money at stake in terms of sponsorship, media
coverage, etc. It can lead to people going too far in the pursuit of winning.
Hopefully whatever happens, this issue can be resolved sooner rather than
later.
