About 12 years ago Khalid Khannouchi came by my office. I did a DEXA scan on him and then we went out to lunch with his brother and a couple of my colleagues. Spent about 2 hours with him. Very soft spoken and just a really pleasant guy.
I met Mike Boit, 800m from Kenya at Hayward field. as I was finishing a somewhat disappointing 5k training run. but not feeling suicidal just yet.
Myself cooling down, Mike joined me without saying a word, jogging on the infield track lane as he was warming up. So he picked up the pace as he got warm, so I picked up the pace, and then he picked up the pace .... etc.
My 5k turned out to be a nice warm up. I was feeling very well.
After a couple of miles and the pace hot, said that's good, and slowed down, as he had 200 m repeats coming up...
Mike said, man you can really run!!
My training partner was witness, bemused, confused, what's up with this sandbagger.? I learned that I need something hard to get warmed up.
The next season I was running in the hills and saw Mike and joined him "naturally". but I don't think he remembered me at all, the reaction was more of meeting a stalker. I exited with a see you later man, or something like that.
Art Boileau is a great guy. We were both on the Vancouver Olympic Club, but he grew up in Portland, I think. Sat beside him on the plane from Vancouver to Moncton for Canadian XC. Lots of great stories.
Those were good years in British Columbia. A lot of VOC guys connected with U of O. Art, Peter Spir, Norm Trerise, etc.
i trained with Art, and he started to come back in 4 milers with the A group of Chappa Sal McChesney, Martin, et.al. and then I broke ankle the next summer and that was my last rodeo, as the speculative result of a good year training leads to 29 flat 10k, or some such which pays no bills.
I did go to university for academics, so that's all she wrote.
Paula Radcliffe. Super nice, down to earth, no different to how she comes across on TV.
Chicago 2018, in a hospitality tent a couple of hours before the marathon, my wife spotted Paula stood alone drinking a coffee. There was hardly anyone around. After a minute or two debating whether to approach her or not we decided to go over and say hello. She was very friendly, spoke to us for several minutes, happily posed for a pictures. Paula seemed to show genuine interest in my marathon training and couldn't possibly have been nicer.
The next day we spotted Brigid Kosgei browsing through clothes in the kids section of the Nike store (we found out later she had twin children). It super busy because they were engraving medals for free. Yet Kosgei, who had won her first WMM less than 24 hours before, seemingly hadn't been recognised by anybody else at all. I congratulated her and she posed for a picture, but Brigid was very shy and could barely understand or speak English. She was polite, but clearly uncomfortable being approached by a stranger, I got the impression she would much rather have stayed anonymous. I felt a bit bad that I'd bothered her.
this is good to hear. from afar i had the opposite impression.
Met Khalid Khannouchi at NYRR clubhouse years ago. I didn't even knew it was him until I put it together. It was just before he started to really hit big time. We talked for awhile. I recall him saying he just ran from somewhere in BK and will be running back home. I think it might have been Red Hook area he said he ran from.
Met several here in Utah (Centro, Fisher, Mantz, Young, Jager, Mo Ahmed, Rooks, Corrigan, Sifan, Cam Llevans, and more). You're sure to see an olympian or two at Jermey Ranch in Park city. Very friendly and approachable. I've been surprised how willing they are to chat. The running world is small enough that the majority of pros are underappreciated and unrecognized by most the world and my experience has been that they enjoy well deserved recognition and admiration.
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Art Boileau is a great guy. We were both on the Vancouver Olympic Club, but he grew up in Portland, I think. Sat beside him on the plane from Vancouver to Moncton for Canadian XC. Lots of great stories.
Those were good years in British Columbia. A lot of VOC guys connected with U of O. Art, Peter Spir, Norm Trerise, etc.
i trained with Art, and he started to come back in 4 milers with the A group of Chappa Sal McChesney, Martin, et.al. and then I broke ankle the next summer and that was my last rodeo, as the speculative result of a good year training leads to 29 flat 10k, or some such which pays no bills.
I did go to university for academics, so that's all she wrote.
forgot the point of the thread. Art and Billy McChesney were the only ones in the A group to entertain the B group runners. It was quite the group, with Sal, Chappa Martin McChesney Martin Irvin Hill, missing a guy.
anyway Billy and Art, great guys, were friendly as in a bit of a friend, and David Mack was a very friendly fellow, but I suppose he picked his spots. In public he wore an attitude.
John Walker at the track where Sam Tanner and Sam Ruthe now train in New Zealand back in the 80s. He ran a sub 4 mile on the grass that day! Super nice guy. Happy to give out tons of autographs and chat with everyone.
this is very true. John's the only person in my personal track and field hall of fame.
and his coach Arch Jelley, who was the main Lydiard in practic of the 70s to 90s,
Had tea with Sir Roger Bannister at his house in Oxford a couple of years ago before he passed. A mutual friend who lived near him set it up. He spent most of our time together asking about my running career in college and what races I was most proud of, and also was curious about my research as I am a scientist who was doing work at Oxford. Every time I asked him about his running accomplishments, he just smiled and asked me another question about myself. I told him I had run a 4:08 mile in college and he said, “That’s an exceptional time,” this from the man who achieved perhaps the greatest accomplishment in track and field history. Met his wife of many years who was so welcoming. One of the great experiences of my life. Yet it was he who acted as if he was having the experience. Just a great human being .
Had tea with Sir Roger Bannister at his house in Oxford a couple of years ago before he passed. A mutual friend who lived near him set it up. He spent most of our time together asking about my running career in college and what races I was most proud of, and also was curious about my research as I am a scientist who was doing work at Oxford. Every time I asked him about his running accomplishments, he just smiled and asked me another question about myself. I told him I had run a 4:08 mile in college and he said, “That’s an exceptional time,” this from the man who achieved perhaps the greatest accomplishment in track and field history. Met his wife of many years who was so welcoming. One of the great experiences of my life. Yet it was he who acted as if he was having the experience. Just a great human being .
There experiences are largely from either living near where London Marathon athletes do their shakeout runs, a training camp I went on in Iten and a track meet I raced at in Vienna, with a couple others in there. Have put them in chronological order from 2015->2025;
Stephen Scullion (NI) - I was doing a session in Ormeau Park, Belfast a couple days after racing Armagh 5K in NI. I was about 100m into my cool down and jogged past (from behind) a couple walking down the street. The guy was extremely skinny, and as I dropped onto the road to go round them I glanced at him and ended up doing a triple/quadruple take as I was sure I'd just spotted Stephen Scullion, after listening to his podcast for years at that point. I clearly looked a bit mental, he noticed, stopped, smiled and walked over to me without any prompting as I had clearly just come to a halt on the side of the road. He asked me loads of questions about what I was up to in Belfast, how long I was staying, how Armagh went, what his plans for the year were, then gestured to the woman and said "well I better be off but was lovely to meet you" shook my hand and left. Was so surreal because you may have an idea of what you might say in this scenario but I was a bit starstruck and we ended up just talking about me more than anything.
London: Kipchoge (KEN) - met him doing his pre-London shakeout at ~6am in Southwark Park with his pacing group, happened to stop at the same road crossing, obviously I was awestruck. He was really polite asked/answered a couple questions and wished me well. Very soft spoken and calm.
Bekele (ETH) - back just before the Breaking2 project, in the week leading up to London Marathon I happened across Bekele testing a new pair of the first iterations of Vaporfly4%'s with a team of sports-scientists and a bunch of laptops in Southwark Park. Bekele was clearly in a bad mood, so it felt stupid to approach him but didnt think I'd get the chance again; he was polite and happy to take a photo. My lasting memory was how broken his english is though. He then DNF'd the race that weekend. Susan Krumins (NED) - happened across Susan the morning after the World Champs finals in London, she was doing a very very slow shakeout run early the next morning along the cycle lanes in her National kit. The bright orange NED kit was hard to miss so I asked if I could have a photo and she talked me through how the Worlds final had gone from her perspective, what she would do differently and how she felt about it all. Really lovely person. Late to work because of it, but worth it. Beth Potter (GBR) - not really a conversation but I was doing a SLR with some teammates along one of the canals in London and Beth came charging up the opposite direction (doing a session) with someone cycling just infront of her. She did not give way to anyone and swore at a bunch of runners a hundred meters ahead of us. Weird.
Iten, Kenya: Julien Ranc, Sebastien Augusto, Simon Bedard, Valentin Gondouin (FRA) - I stayed at Julien's training camp in Iten. He is really nice, organised and very helpful, but obviously very often the centre of attention there so always busy/pulled away for stuff. Simon and Valentin were nice enough but very quiet, Sebastien however has the biggest ego I have ever come across (in person) in my life. It was absolute unreal and a completely unbearable person who seems more preoccupied with eyeing himself up in the mirror and blanking people he didnt want to talk to, than doing anything for anyone. I didn't even try talking to him much after seeing how he acted towards a couple of people. Nasty piece of work.
Daniel Ebenyo (KEN) - met him down at the Kipchoge stadium after his session, just as I was starting mine. He joked that he would only take a photo with me if I voted for him in the World Athletics poll for 'Athlete of the year'. Was a brief interaction, nice enough guy. Said he wants to be the best in the world soon. Yeman Crippa (ITA) - Second only to Sebastien, Crippa was also a nasty piece of work. Snarling at anyone who spoke to him, I was talking to him after his session about having watched him race a 10,000m in London the year prior, to which he started testing me on details to see if it was genuine or not. Alot of huffing and sighing. Some people taking photos with him and he wouldnt even smile for them.
Nicholas Kimeli (KEN) - incredibly brief interaction on the side of a dirt road in Kenya. Very bad grasp of English so the conversation was a bit hard. Also saw Julien Wanders & Lornah Salpeter on this run but didnt speak with them. John Heymans (BEL) - stayed with John at Julien's training camp. Never met a man with less ego. I didn't know who he was and it was 2-3days before he even admitted the calibre of athlete he was, he was more interested in debating me on training approaches, who is doping, hypothetical races between athletes etc. Really genuine guy and have stayed in touch with him since. Went on to make the OLY 5000m final and now has a Youtube channel, and I'll say he youtube version of him is definitely a dramatised version, he's much more normal day-to-day and seemingly also resent's that side of the sport.
Vienna: George Mills (GBR) - met him the evening before his race in Vienna doing his shakeout and strides etc. Really nice guy but very serious demeanour, which seems in line with alot of his interviews/social media presence. Was perfectly polite but didn't seem to want to hang about, fair enough didnt owe me anything.
Ky Robinson (AUS) - After doing my pre-meet I was changing shoes and realised Ky was stood next to me. This was just after signing to On but before making his debut or joining the team for training, he raced the 5000 the following night but it was very very warm. We had a long chat about his training with Charles at college, decision to go for On, goals for the future etc. Really nice guy, very laid back, you would be forgiven for thinking he was on a beach holiday he seemed so relaxed. Chris Thompson (GBR) - he was in the athlete tent just after my 5000m race, as I'd just raced one of the athletes he coaches. Had a chat with him about his famous Marathon comeback in Kew Gardens Marathon (GB OLY trials) and then missing the subsequent OLY as well as how he reflects on his whole career. I can say without a doubt Chris was/is the nicest person I've ever met in my life. He was a delight and talked at length about his young child, wife and some emotional moments, really open for someone who is a complete stranger and the type of person you could sit in a pub with a beer for hours with I'm sure.
London:
Eilish McColgan - was down training at the track I use last year, I'll admit I've never been much of a fan because of how many excuses she always seems to use on social media and race interviews. A teammate of mine wanted a photo so I went over with him to take it; we ended up talking to her for 15-20mins; happy to admit I was completely turned around by how lovely she was. We talked at length about the new WA rules around qualifications (women not being able to be paced by men) which had just broken that day, as well as her plans for the coming months. If you had taken just a transcript of the conversation, you would never have guessed she was famous, it was just like talking to any one of your mates.