Going the distance; Richard Moore catches up with Dave Wallace - the

DAVE WALLACE has a wonderful expression for describing the knack of ultra-distance running, or, rather, what happens when it all becomes a bit too much. He is talking about the West Highland Way Race, which he's doing, all 95 miles of it, in two weeks. He has started the UK's longest hill race eight times, finishing seven, and he holds a course record - 15 hours, 26 minutes - that has stood for 13 years.

How do you contemplate running 95 miles? More to the point, how do you prepare the body for such an ordeal?

"You have to break it down," Wallace says. "If you think about the whole distance you'll never finish it. Your mind will collapse."

This, perhaps, becomes the primary aim of the long-distance runner, an occupation that, famously, is the loneliest of all. When the mind collapses, chances are the body won't be far behind.

Wallace is 52, and therefore a "super-vet", though the term is appropriate beyond the official definition, which could be a euphemism for "a bit old for this kind of thing". Needless to say, he doesn't look his 52 years.

Retirement may loom, but not too large. Instead, with huge dollops of self-mocking humour he describes himself as "a new man".

He prefers this to "retired", anyway. Having had a variety of jobs, including seven years in the army, Wallace has been perfectly comfortable in the new man role, bringing up three kids, now all at secondary school, while his wife has been the full-time worker.

Such a lifestyle is handy for training. And so is the Wallace family home, separated from the Pentland hills only by a narrow strip of tarmac. They moved there 15 years ago, not long after Wallace became ser-ious about his running.

"The hills were a factor in moving out here," he admits, raving about the opportunities presented by the Pentlands.

Wallace ran the first WHWR in 1988. Previously it had gone north to south, but this was the first time it had started in Milngavie and finished in Fort William.

It remains, Wallace believes, the longest hill race in the UK. And it's gaining an international reputation - this year sees a Ukrainian team taking part.

Yet Wallace, who only took up the sport when he was 34, has run further. On finding that he was a strong endurance runner, he was keen to discover his limits. "It just seemed that the further the race was, the further up the field I finished," he says.

In 1989 he competed in the London 24-hour, clocking up an astonishing 147 miles. But an injury two years later prompted a reassessment. He suffered a stress fracture in his leg while running the world 24-hour championship. To add insult to the injury, it was sustained as he was running across a marble floor in Milton Keynes shopping centre. Six weeks of inactivity followed and he resolved not to return to 24-hour racing.

It's clear that he enjoys running in the hills. Even the training. That's essential, since it's only physically possible to do around three ultra-distance events in a year. For seven weeks, building up to a race such as the WHWR, Wallace runs at least 100 miles a week - that's roughly 16 hours spent tramping over the Pentlands.

He argues that this isn't excessive. His 16-year- old daughter is a gymnast and puts in 20 hours a week. All three children share their father's passion for phys-ical endeavour. The middle son, aged 14, is a weightlifter and the youngest, aged 12, is already showing promise as a hill runner.

Meanwhile, Wallace is quick to stress the importance of his family to his WHWR effort; each year they act as an essential, and now very knowledgeable, support team.

"For me there's a huge difference between training and racing," says Wallace.

"Racing is engrossing, it's all about tactics and thinking about it in stages. Sometimes I don't feel a thing. Some people call it runner's high but you only get that if you put in a lot of effort."

But he also reveals a Calvinist streak, screwing up his face: "We were born to suffer." It's something he relishes, saying: "I find it hard to distinguish now between pain and pleasure.

"Sometimes towards the end of something like this you really feel you can't run another step. In your head you're running but you're probably doing a slow walk. Then you get overtaken by a granny."

Asked what is the essential quality in a good ultra-distance runner, his answer is interesting. It's not physiology, or mental fortitude - though both are very important. "Passion," answers Wallace. "I've still got a passion for it. I'm not as fast I used to be but as long as you've got the passion . . .

"You can't train over the distance we race, so you just have to hope the training works. Of course physiology is important. Everyone's is different. I've been lucky with mine. Some collapse after 20 miles, others can go up to 100km, then they collapse. But another group can keep going."

It's a small, select group, to which, of course, he belongs. "But I think the main thing is passion," he continues. "You've got to have a passion for what you're doing. All the good long-distance runners I know are real individuals. Hardly any of us have coaches."

In the past this has led to an image of the long-distance runner as eccentric, or worse. "It's got better over the years," Wallace laughs. "I think most people think we're weird, but at least I don't get stones chucked at me any more.

"When I was mountain climbing, before I started running, you were seen as a lunatic. In mountain areas like Skye and Cairngorms, the attitude was that you shouldn't be there. Now it's an integral part of a massive tourist industry."

But he isn't completely out of sync with the view that the West Highland Way Race competitors can display some eccentricity.

"At the start of the WHWR it's surreal - that's the only word for it. It's 2 or 3am, and you run into this black tunnel. It's a bit like being reborn.

"It's a great race because you always have this hope, but you know you've only got a 50:50 chance of finishing.

"And some of the behaviour in the car park in Milngavie is crazy. One year we saw a guy doing sprint intervals before the start, up and down the car park. He led at first. He didn't finish, I don't think."

Copyright 2002
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