Mid week report and more on The Mile v 1500m

Swing Bridge
Following on from Sunday's race, Monday was an easy 7 miles along the Derwent Walk.

 Last night, however, I decided to pick things up a little, and a group of us did a 12 mile run which included 3 x 10 mins with 3mins jog recovery.

The route was a 2 mile loop around Shibdon Pond by myself before joining the group and heading off along the Keelman's Way, behind the Metro Centre, into Gateshead, crossing the Swing Bridge into Newcastle,  heading back along the riverside path by the Tyne, to Scotswood, crossing Scotswood Bridge and the following the path alongside the Derwent into Swalwell. 

All of which has left my legs feeling a little heavy this morning.  So another easy paced run planned for this evening.

Back in February, I posted about the demise of  'The Mile' and a campaign that was starting in America to 'Bring Back the Mile'.

Having just read Rob Hadgraft's blog Diary of a Clapped out Runner his recent post puts the blame as to the demise of the Mile firmly at the door of the French.  Putting forward the following theories:

Firstly, that the introduction and start of the growth in popularity of the 1500m was a matter of convenience. As the French are a Metric nation, they started competing over 1500m in the 1890's, the distance coming about as they laid 500m tracks such as the one used for the 1900 Olympics.

Secondly, that the introduction and promotion of the 1500m came about as a result of anti-English feelings in France, which coincided with the revival of the Modern Olympics by Baron de Coubertin.  The argument being:

".... authority of the Mile had to be challenged in order to give the metric measures their own identity or integrity.  1500m is close enough to the Mile to be a meaningful athletic distance, but different enough to NOT be English!"

An interesting aside to this - the 1900 Olympic 1500m was won by Charles Bennet of Britain in 4.06.2, from Henri Deloge of France in 4.06.6!!

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