From Last to First: How I Became a Marathon Champion

Review by Luboš Brabec, 17 November 2023

From Last to First came out in 2009, just like Born to Run. While the latter became a bestseller, for better and for worse, the former enjoys nowhere near that popularity. And that’s a shame. Because it’s an absolute gem.

It was written by former English marathoner Charlie Spedding, who originally self-published it; after considerable reader interest, a major publisher bought the rights. “It was like running a marathon uphill and into the wind,” Spedding admits. For me, his autobiography is the best thing I’ve read about running so far. I’d almost say it’s required reading for every runner with at least some ambition. Incredibly motivating. Especially in times when your running isn’t going well.

When I was choosing my next running book among the e-books on Amazon, I didn’t expect much from this one. But what else was I supposed to pick? The new releases were all variations on How to Run Barefoot Properly. Yes, I knew the name Charlie Spedding, but I honestly admit that if someone had asked me three weeks ago to list his greatest achievements, I’d have squirmed. At most I’d have remembered the Olympic bronze medal from Los Angeles 1984.

So nothing that at first glance promised a great read. And yet I read the book in one go. Twice. It’s written with perspective, passion and the kind of humour people call English.

Spedding tells the story of a runner who wasn’t especially talented, yet besides the Olympic bronze he won the London Marathon, finished second there once, added a third place in Chicago and on top of that a sixth place at the Seoul Olympics. His time of 2:08:33 is still the English record.

“I didn’t win an Olympic bronze medal because I was the third most talented runner in the world. Among those who lined up for the marathon in Los Angeles, I didn’t stand out at all. Yes, I probably had more talent than average runners. But you don’t race them at the Olympics,” writes Spedding.

A champion born in a pub

The story begins at a school in a small English town. Spedding (born 1952) was a timid boy with an eye defect, and when the PE teacher organised the children’s first 100-metre race, he came last. He enjoyed football more, although he didn’t excel there either. One of his classmates was a certain Tony Blair. “I can’t even remember how good he was at football. But I do remember that he could always make up the rules so they suited his team. Even then I might have guessed he was made for politics.”

But when Spedding had to choose which sport to pursue outside school lessons, he chose athletics. Precisely because of his unpleasant experience in PE. He soon found that the longer the distance, the further up the results he moved. In time he started winning school races over middle distances and gradually worked his way up to a club in Gateshead. He learned from the great runners of his era and his times kept improving. But nothing suggested that this man would one day be one of the world’s top marathoners.

He didn’t shine in cross-country, he was better on the track, but even at 28 he was only part of the wider elite in England. He was never national champion; he could run the 5,000 m just under 14 minutes and the 10,000 m under 29 minutes. Not much by top-level standards. England had plenty of runners like that back then… Occasionally he got into some minor meet abroad; at home he collected fifth, eighth, twelfth places.

But one day in a pub, when he’d missed his train to Newcastle, he drank a few extra beers and, while drinking them, wrote down very honest answers to three basic questions: What do I want to achieve in athletics? How much do I want to achieve it? Why do I want to achieve it? Then he paid and left the pub a different runner. He sold the family business, moved to Boston and started again. Differently. Better. The year was 1980.

A sensational bronze in Los Angeles

Within two years he had qualified for the European Championships in Athens over 10,000 m and for the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane. He hadn’t set the world on fire yet, but he was reassured that he was on the right track. More and more people were telling him it was time to move up to the marathon, where he’d have a better chance of success. But he decided he would only do so once he had become English champion. He managed that the following year, and so he started thinking about the Olympic marathon in Los Angeles.

He trained a lot, but before going for the qualifying standard he wanted to check whether the marathon was really his distance. In January 1984 he entered the Houston Marathon, but the organisers refused to pay his travel, explaining that he was a “no name” for them. So he paid for his own plane tickets and sensationally won. His time of 2:12 showed him he would get on well with the marathon, and on top of that he won 20,000 dollars, the biggest sum of his career so far. He repeated the win in London and secured his Olympic selection.

He sacrificed everything for his dream. In the final weeks and months he thought of nothing but the race of his life. And he fought his way to a surprising bronze. In a marathon where the odds on him winning were 33 to 1. Behind him finished Kenyans, Tanzanians, world champion Rob de Castella, home favourite Alberto Salazar and the traditionally excellent Japanese.

He could have had more results of that calibre, had he not been dogged by frequent injuries. How many times does he mention in the book that a sore Achilles forced him to stop training for a long time? Ten times? Fifteen?

Twenty seconds from death

He had surgery on it three times. The first time he almost died during the operation. His body had an allergic reaction to the anaesthetic, he swelled up all over, and he was lucky that the nurse who happened to be with him recognised anaphylactic shock and, above all, knew what to do. He was twenty seconds from death. For the doctors, once it was all over, it was a sensation. He was the first known case of a person with such a reaction. They even photographed him for medical textbooks. The chance of such a problem is supposedly about the same as winning the lottery jackpot. Only the consequences aren’t nearly as pleasant.

During the third operation the doctor botched his Achilles so badly that what was meant to be a routine clean-up turned into a severe infection, which ended his season and kept him out of training for four months.

That was one of the reasons why, before the next Olympics in Seoul, he hadn’t done as much training as he would have liked. Even so, he battled his way to sixth place. A few kilometres from the finish, when his legs no longer wanted to run and his head wanted to give up, he made a deal with his body: “If you get me to the finish at this pace and in sixth place, we won’t run another marathon.”

And that’s what happened. Although not intentionally. Even after Seoul he wanted to keep racing. After all, he could finally earn some decent money for the first time. But he withdrew from London twice because of injury and dropped out in Fukuoka. In autumn 1989 he was entered in the then quite lucrative Beijing Marathon, but he withdrew because he didn’t want to run across Tiananmen Square, where the blood of the massacred students had not yet dried.

Be careful what you dream about

In the book Spedding adds a lot of experience and advice on proper training. And above all, on every page he proves that great results aren’t reserved for the most talented. All you need is your dreams and to devote time and effort to them. It took him sixteen years.

“All my life I dreamed of an Olympic medal, even though it was a very bold and actually unrealistic dream. Today I know I could have had silver. But for years I had taught my body to dream of a medal, so when I could still attack second place on the track of the stadium in Los Angeles, my body wouldn’t accept it. Yes, I worked hard, I gave everything in the finish, but somewhere at the back of my mind there was a block telling me the medal was in the bag anyway. If I had been fourth at that moment, I believe I would have won bronze in the same situation,” writes Spedding, and warns: “Be careful what you dream about.”

In his career he experienced more failure than joy. Besides a series of injuries, his handful of medals came at the price of plenty of average results, disappointments and training setbacks. “That’s why I was surprised when, years later, I read my training diary and found lots of notes like: Great run. Ran really well. Feel amazing. Brilliant session. Super feeling.”

Maybe we’re all like that.

This review was written by Luboš Brabec. Luboš is a Czech sports journalist and also the author of three running books. I consider his first book, Maraton a jiné pošetilosti (The Marathon and Other Follies), one of the best I’ve read about running. These days I’m more motivated by the perspective of an “ageing” runner and his desire to take on one more marathon with dignity. I’m looking for the recipe in his book Ještě jeden maraton (One More Marathon). And if I manage all that, maybe I’ll get to run a race with Daniel Orálek. Thanks to the book Můj dlouhý běh (My Long Run) I know almost everything about him. If that’s not enough and you’re a sports fan, especially of the NHL or the German Bundesliga, follow Luboš on Twitter.

Original review in Czech