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Magazines Runner's World UK Magazine 27 July 2023Stepping back in time

Stepping back in time

4 min read

JOIN US ON A JOURNEY IN OUR VERY OWN TIME CAPSULE TO WHEN THE FIRST ISSUE OF RUNNER’S WORLD HIT UK SHELVES THIS TIME 30 YEARS AGO. A FLICK THROUGH THE PAGES REVEALS THAT MUCH HAS CHANGED, ALTHOUGH A FEW THINGS REMAIN REASSURINGLY FAMILIAR…

WORDS: JOE MACKIE.

Topics
Olympics
Topics
Olympics
RW’s first cover star Katy McCandless would go on to set a 5000m PB of 15:28 and then represent Ireland in the 5000m at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996
PHOTOGRAPHY: MARK SHEARMAN; ALLSPORT; MARK SHEARMAN/ASSOCIATED SPORTS/ALLSPORT
Set the pace RW’s original columnist was a heavy hitter. The legendary Ron Clarke, who set 17 WRs during a stellar career, used his first ‘Viewpoint’ to talk about race pacemakers. Clarke sadly passed away in 2015, but we can guess what he would have made of Eliud Kipchoge’s sub2:00 marathon.
Half measures A few eyebrows were raised and overuse injuries were instinctively cradled in the RW office when we saw the 50-mile weeks involved in the half marathon training plan here. Serious stuff indeed.
Barrier break RW spoke to Kenya’s Yobes Ondieki shortly after he became the first athlete to go under 27 minutes for the 10,000m. His WR lasted a year, broken by his compatriot William Sigei in 1994. With Joshua Cheptegei’s current WR of 26:11 set in 2020, we’re betting the 26-minute barrier will be breached by the time RW celebrates its 35th anniversary.
PHOTOGRAPHY: ADIDAS; ASICS
Time travelling It’s hard to imagine a time when the big breakthrough in running watches was the Timex Ironman 50’s incredible 50-lap memory, which we hailed as cutting out the need to wear two watches on your wrists during a run in order to store enough split times. Needless to say, it would not tell you your vertical oscillation and ground contact time, but on the plus side, no one could text you while you were out enjoying your miles.
Old soles A sample of the ads showcasing the cutting-edge running footwear back in September 1993 reminds us of the giant step forwards we’ve taken with the tech under our feet. We’d love to get our hands on (or more precisely, feet in) the retro cool of the Asics Gel 66, though.
Raise the bar After some eye-catching successes, we asked why the balance of power in marathon running seemed to be shifting to Asia. But while it’s a fascinating snapshot of the elite marathon scene in 1993, the intervening years have seen that power stay firmly planted in east Africa. That said, there is an extremely strong marathon scene in Japan, with many international successes. Japanese women won back-to-back Olympic marathon golds in 2000 and 2004, while Japanese legend Yuki Kawauchi won the Boston Marathon men’s race in 2018. The strength depth at the top of Japanese running is extraordinary: at the 2021 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, an astonishing 40 Japanese men finished the race in under 2:10. For China, Zhou Chunxia took home the bronze medal in

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Topics
Olympics

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