Before the marathon’s magic number, runners chased the clock itself.

On October 17 in 1964, Jim Alder of Morpeth Harriers took to the start line of a “two-hour race” in Walton in Surrey. The gun went and he began circling the cinder track in a pair of Dunlop Red Flash trainers. A couple of hours later he crossed the line with a world best performance of 23 miles and 1071 yards.

“Poetry in motion,” is how AW’s correspondent, Sam Ferris, described it at the time.

Alder’s run of 23.608 miles (or 37.994km) surpassed Fred Norris’s previous world best of 22 miles, 1610 yards from 1958 and on the way he set a Commonwealth record for 30km (1:34:01) and world best for 20 miles (1:34:01). In those days, two hours meant distance not destiny.

Alder would dearly have loved to have been 6000 miles away in Tokyo, though. The Olympic marathon took place four days later with Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia successfully defending his crown in a world record of 2:12:11 as British runners Basil Heatley, Brian Kilby and Ron Hill finished second, fourth and 19th.

“I was in the form of my life and would have been in the mix,” Alder told AW this week. “But it was not to be.”

An orphan from the Glasgow Gorbals who settled in Northumberland, Alder was one of Britain’s iconic distance runners in the 1960s. He may have missed out in Tokyo in 1964 – a knee injury scuppered his hopes at the trials and he was named as a non-travelling reserve – but two years later he took gold for Scotland at the Commonwealth Games in Jamaica.

Known as 'Geronimo Jim' for crying out ‘Geronimo!’ when he crossed the finish line in the lead, he worked as a bricklayer and is still going strong today, walking around an hour every day to stay fit on the eve of his 86th birthday.

Before the marathon had a two-hour barrier, runners like Alder were already chasing the clock in a different way. The two-hour run used to be a legitimate record-chasing format, but it has gradually become a forgotten event.

In the 60 years since Alder’s Commonwealth victory, the marathon has changed massively too. Dunlop Red Flash trainers have been replaced by super shoes such as the adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 worn by Sawe in London. Alder used to take liquid by squeezing a sponge in his mouth mid-race as he didn’t enjoy swigging water, but today’s runners knock back gels and drinks packed with carbs, caffeine and electrolytes.

Alder had no pacemakers for his two-hour world best at Walton. He did not have a coach either.

The 1960s marathoners invariably held down a demanding and often physical job and squeezed their training before and after work – Alder reckons his record weekly mileage was a whopping 213 – whereas today’s athletes are not only full-time but surrounded by teams of sports scientists, nutritionists, physios and massage therapists.

Alder was one of the best of his era, though, just as Sawe is the No.1 now. Different eras, same obsession – to run as far as possible in two hours.

Heart of the problem

Jim Alder’s heart is so strong, it still beats only 30-odd times per minute at rest and is so loud he reckons he can hear it thumping if he gets up in the night. Yet he is one of many ex-runners who have been diagnosed with heart issues, in his case a “leaky valve”.

Alder is far from alone as former distance runners who have encountered heart problems in later life is a well-documented phenomenon.

Indeed, AW has covered this topic a few times in depth over the years with Dr James O’Keefe, a renowned cardiologist, saying: “Chronic over-exercisers may develop scarring and calcification inside their ventricles and arteries.”

All of which leads us to an interesting theory which AW’s long-time contributor, Martin Duff, suggested after watching this year’s London Marathon. Super shoes, he says, are allowing runners to train harder than ever, but can their hearts cope with the additional mileage and tough track sessions?

“Goodness knows what will happen to sub-two-hour marathoners when they get a little older,” Duff says.

Nick Samuels, a former international 800m and 1500m runner, saw his athletics career brought to a premature halt with serious heart problems. He says: “I'm convinced these issues mainly arise where individuals consistently push beyond physical limits.

“My issues arose shortly after super shoes became mainstream. The confidence boost they gave to run increasingly longer workouts with better splits than ever did drive me to push more and more.

“I was also doing a lot on the bike which, as a tool to push your limits of endurance, has a lot of similarities to super shoes – you can push hard and long and still come back the next day to do it again.

“The body ultimately tells you when it's had enough!”

Sawe’s sub-two in the shade?

As brilliant as Sabastian Sawe’s sub-two-hour run was, for me the events in Vienna in 2019 took the shine off his performance a little. Eliud Kipchoge’s 1:59:41 may have been an unratified exhibition time trial, but when it comes to simply running inside two hours, Kipchoge was first.

It will be interesting to see how history remembers the sub-two-hour marathon. In 20-30 years’ time, will we remember Sawe or Kipchoge? I attended both events for AW and I believe Kipchoge's sub-two was a bigger deal at the time and received slightly more coverage around the world, although the methods INEOS used definitely divided opinion at the time.

In 1954 Roger Bannister became the first man to run a sub-four-minute mile in an official race with 3:59.4, but his performance was similarly in danger of being over-shadowed as rival middle-distance runner Ken Wood always insisted he broke the barrier in a ‘training race’ at University of Sheffield Sports Ground the previous month with an even quicker 3:59.2.

Wood was a fine runner and his sizzling kick finish earned him four victories in the Emsley Carr Mile. Yet his sub-four-minute mile claims have always been met with skepticism.

Sheffield’s run-down facilities

Today’s athletes would struggle to run a sub-four-minute mile in Sheffield right now for the simple reason that there isn’t a useable outdoor synthetic track in the city.

The Don Valley Stadium was demolished in 2013 and now the nearby Woodbourn Road track is closed indefinitely because the surface isn’t considered safe for athletes to run on.

READ MORE: Jim Alder interview

Sheffield Hallam University, who own the facility, say the earliest they will have funds to repair the track is the summer of 2027 – and even then there is no guarantee the surface will be relaid.

All of which means Britain’s sixth biggest city doesn’t have an outdoor athletics track for the foreseeable future, despite producing the likes of Seb Coe, Jessica Ennis-Hill ... and of course Ken Wood over the years.