In his new book, former AW editor Paul Larkins recalls what it was like to mix it with the best middle-distance runners of the 1980s

For middle-distance fans, the past year or so has represented something of a journey back in time to the 1980s. Just like those heady years of 40 or so years ago in front of the packed crowds in Oslo and Zurich, records are currently being broken on an almost weekly basis. And, when the big names do finally clash, not only is it headline news but no one really is really able to predict which athlete will come out on top.

Back in 1980 the rivalry between Seb Coe and Steve Ovett was what every club runner talked about. Now the topic of conversation is all about Josh Kerr v Jakob Ingebrigtsen, not to mention half a dozen of their other rivals. Will the Scot use his incredible finishing speed or will Norwegian strength prevail? And what about Jake Wightman? Or any one of three or four American contenders?

It’s this rivalry that makes the sport so interesting at the moment and it’s no surprise that Kerr himself compares the pre-race banter and racing to that amazing era – one in which I grew up. And that’s what got me thinking: is the 1980s really responsible for everything we’re enjoying today? I’ll have to say it is, given that that is exactly the thinking behind my book, Running in the Shadows of the Gods.

Looking back at that incredible decade, it wasn’t just about Coe v Ovett. Something called the London Marathon started, as did the Great North Run. Suddenly it wasn’t just about watching on TV – we could all take part as well.

Runners were also rewarded with actual prize money for amazing performances rather than crystal vases (I have a few) and, as for footwear, well the development we enjoyed was every bit, if not more, amazing than the carbon plated shoes that are responsible for currently rewriting the record books.

For those of you who need reminding – all but the keenest of statisticians, I suspect – my name is Paul Larkins and in 1981 I finished 171st in the under-20 race in the National Cross Country at Parliament Hill (we’ll come back to that later).

If I was running in the Shadows of the Gods at the time, then I think you’ll agree they were pretty long ones.

But, as the countless runners who now dip inside the once hallowed barrier of 3:40 for 1500m have discovered, those Gods are worthy of their status. You watch them, as I did, dream impossible dreams and slowly but ever so surely try to close that gap. Gods are there to be shot at and shadows can shorten. On occasion, there can even be glimpses of sunlight!

By 1984, thanks to a scholarship to Oklahoma State and undoubted advances in footwear, I too could crack 3:40 and even threaten overseas legends like Steve Scott (the 1983 World silver medallist) and Joaquim Cruz (the soon-to-be 1984 Olympic 800m champion).

Why do I mention the shoes? Well, even my first coach – three-time English Schools champion Trevor Rodwell – sported what looked like plimsols whenever he joined us for a Southern League match. Footwear was changing at an incredible pace.

Who remembers the Adidas Oregon shoe, for example? It used Dellinger’s Web (created by the University of Oregon coach Bill Dellinger) which apparently dispersed shock throughout the shoe and reduced leg fatigue.

Super shoes? Old hat. We had them in 1982. You may laugh, but before I got those shoes I had opted for the Adidas SL72 which you can still buy as a fashion item. Give them a whirl and see how they perform on a 10-miler.

It wasn’t just in footwear where the big advancements started to come and I can tell you track surfaces have played an unbelievable role in all of this development. The 1980s saw the beginning of the move away from cinder and grass tracks to the all-weather surfaces we benefit from today. They make a massive difference.

We trained on cinder and raced on grass mostly. My schoolmate Steve Heard (1989 European Indoor 800m champion) won the Kent Schools 400m on a grass track in 49 seconds then clocked an English Schools record of 47.1 on what was, for us, a rare visit to an all-weather venue.

Indoor athletics was just taking off in a big way in the 1980s when I ran, but there wasn’t anything like the state of the art facilities you come across now in places like Boston.

I still had to endure racing on wood and even lino. I clocked a sub-four-minute mile on a track essentially constructed of wooden pallets (no all-weather coating, just wood) and even helped Oklahoma State to a world-leading (but very slow these days) Distance Medley Relay with a 4:02 around the concession stands in a basketball arena.

It all sounds very old-fashioned – and it was – but by the end of that decade wood was retired and the concession stands returned to what they were built for – soft drinks and burger sales.

The sport was growing, adapting and developing at an amazing rate. It had nothing to do with me – I was just there – but we owe so much to coaches and meeting promoters from that era who saw what could happen.

Likewise Brendan Foster and Chris Brasher. Their visions of mass road running – that brought the creation of the Great North Run and London Marathon respectively – have changed the sport for the better. In about 1980 I ran in the Rochester 5 along with a couple of hundred other hardcore road runner types. It was great fun but, clearly, if you weren’t a member of a club, it probably wasn’t for you.

I write about all of this and more in Running in the Shadows of the Gods. There’s a bit about me – winning an NCAA title was perhaps the highlight and my moment out of the shadows – but really the book is all about why we’re enjoying such an amazing moment right now.

Now, back to that 171st place at the National. I’m also going to say you never know what can occur if you chase a dream. I say that because just recently, along with AW’s very own Jason Henderson, I chatted with the newly crowned National cross-country champion Richard Slade. He won pretty handily and was understandably delighted as his previous visit to Parliament Hill had seen him finish outside the top 200. Like us in 1980, he looked at what could occur if he trained properly. Well, you just never know!

Paul Larkins won the NCAA mile title in 1986 along with a couple of AAA Indoor 3000m golds. He represented GB at the World Road Relays in Madeira and the World Indoors in Seville, once ran a world record for the mile on a treadmill and worked for AW for many years. Oh, and once, working in Hawaii, met his idol – four-time Olympic champion Lasse Viren – in a hotel lobby and went for an hour’s run with him. Nearly 30 years later Paul, though probably not Lasse, can recall every second of that run…

Running in the Shadows of the Gods is available on Amazon and in all good bookshops