ATHLETE'S PROFILE
RAY BILLINGTON
CLUB: Wrexham
PREVIOUS CLUBS: Barrow AC, Birchfield AC, Colchester AC, Rhyl AC, Liverpool Pembroke A & CC, Thames Valley Harriers
AGE: 80 (DOB: 24.3.1934)
OTHER SPORTS PLAYED: Football, golf, table-tennis
HOW LONG COMPETING: Started competing in 1950 shortly after leaving school.
HOBBIES/INTERESTS: Railway signalling and accident investigations, also 1960s music. Instrumental in starting Rhyl AC and North Wales CC League.
FAVOURITE RACING DISTANCE: Initially half-mile (880 yards), now 5k and 10k.
FAVOURITE RACE AND WHY: 5th July, 1958, Wales v Nigeria, half-mile. I won the race in 1m 53s which broke the Welsh Native record held by Jim Alford.
FAVOURITE TRAINING SESSION: In the 1960s Sunday mornings during the winter - 20 x 880 around Marine Lake with 440 recovery; in the summer - 16 x 220 with 110 recovery.
PROUDEST MOMENT: Representing Wales in the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games.
WHOM DO YOU MOST ADMIRE: Seb Coe for his outstanding ability on the track and for all that he has done for the sport - a true ambassador.
PERSONAL AMBITIONS: In recent years, having fractured both femurs (on separate occasions) and had a mini-stroke (TIA) all during running, I have been put on medication which includes statins that has resulted in my legs feeling tired and aching even before I run. In consequence, despite training six days a week I am not running anywhere near as well as I ought to. I am continually striving to overcome this problem but at present with little if any success.
ANY REGRETS: Not having received any coaching, I always used to base my training on ding as much as possible in a session, even in the middle of the track season regularly doing 12 x 440 with a 220 recovery. I realise now that I ought to have been doing less in quantity and more in quality.
EMBARRASSING EXPERIENCES: There have been many, but a rather amusing incident was during a road race many years ago in Mid-Wales there was a shortage of marshals along the course and nearing the finish in the lead I took a wrong turning and found myself approaching the finish line from the opposite direction, with the timkeepers facing the other way. As I crossed the line the look on their faces was a sight to behold.
WHAT CHANGES WOULD I LIKE TO SEE: I would very much like to see handicap track races reintroduced. In the Cheshire/Lancashire areas in the 1960s there used to be handicap meetings sponsored by Widnes Police, St Helens Police, Liverpool Police, BICC Helsby, Pilkington Glass St Helens, Liverpool Parks and Gardens and Chester Council, with a track on the Roodee.
I ran in the half-mile event which involved 3 or 4 heats with about 30 runners in each, the first six in each heat qualifying for the final held later in the programme. When you ran your first handicap race you were given a mark that you were to run off, usually about 75 yards, and if you won the race your mark was reduced to 8 yards, 4 yards if you were second or third, the next time you raced. If you were not placed in any of the races during the season your mark was increased next year.
At the start of the race runners would be positioned at intervals around the track coinciding with their individual marks. The back-markers would usually run off 20 to 30 yards while the frontrunners were off 120 yards and you retained your mark during both heat and final. Being a back-marker you had to run as fast as you could from the gun to ensure you caught the front markers before the finish, which ensured you had to run to your limit.
There was also an excellent club one-mile medley relay incorporated into the programme (the only non-handicap event) with teams consisting of 2 x 220 runners, a x 440 and a half-mile runner, the race progressing in this order. There was a most attractive prize list for each event.
EXTRA ITEMS:
How I came to take up the sport: My friends and I used to play a lot of football with a small ball on the promenade in Rhyl, usually on Sunday mornings, with coats for goalposts and no other boundaries. I gradually realised that I was getting as much, if not more, enjoyment from running around as I was from the football, so I decided to enter the County Athletics Championships at the Coronation Gardens, and won both the 440 and 880 events.
Shortly after this I was called up to do my National Service in the RAF and subsequently found myself in Baghdad. Whilst there I became friendly with a member of Liverpool Pembroke and he put me in touch with their club trainer who I was invited to meet on my demob. This I did and turned up on a Saturday afternoon with my running kit.
We went out for a road run and after a couple of miles he said we would be returning along the same route and suggested that I might like to stride out on the way back, which I did, thinking "I'll show him how good I am", overlooking the fact that I was 20 and he was in his late 50s.
Over a drink he suggested I might like to come down the following week and be introduced to the Pembroke team before taking part in a Mob Run, which was a road race with all the Liverpool clubs taking part. The next week I turned up and learned that the race was to take place in a residential area.
Wanting to make a good impression, I shot into the lead from the gun but after a couple of miles began to feel a little tired and asked a nearby runner if we were near the finish, to which he replied: "We're not halfway yet" .
By now several runners were passing me and I started to get a little concerned at the possibility of being lost in a residential area. Just then a guy in a red and white ringed Pembroke vest came alongside me and asked if I was OK, to which I replied that I was shattered because I had gone off too fast.
To my relief he stayed with me to the finish. I later learned he was the club captain and could easily have won the race. In consequence on the train home I thought what a wonderful club/sport I had become involved with if a fellow competitor would be prepared to forsake his personal performance to help me. We subsequently became great friends and team-mates.
A somewhat reversal of roles occurred recently in the Guilden Sutton 10k, following which a female competitor e-mailed Wrexham club secretary Bob Frost to thank me for having helped and encouraged her to finish what was her first race
PERSONAL BESTS
100 yards: 10.9s, 1958
200 yards: 23.2s , 1958
440 yards: 50.7s, 1958
880 yards: 1m 53.5s, 1958
1 mile: 4m 16s, 1960
1,500m: 3m 56s, 1960
10m: 52m 30s, 1968
20m: 1h 50m 40s, 1966
Half-Marathon: 1h 12m 42s
Marathon: 2h 39m 20s, Harlow, 1966.
TOTAL MILEAGE RUN: 1052 to date - 135,500 miles (No record of number of running shoes worn out in the process).
RAY BILLINGTON
CLUB: Wrexham
PREVIOUS CLUBS: Barrow AC, Birchfield AC, Colchester AC, Rhyl AC, Liverpool Pembroke A & CC, Thames Valley Harriers
AGE: 80 (DOB: 24.3.1934)
OTHER SPORTS PLAYED: Football, golf, table-tennis
HOW LONG COMPETING: Started competing in 1950 shortly after leaving school.
HOBBIES/INTERESTS: Railway signalling and accident investigations, also 1960s music. Instrumental in starting Rhyl AC and North Wales CC League.
FAVOURITE RACING DISTANCE: Initially half-mile (880 yards), now 5k and 10k.
FAVOURITE RACE AND WHY: 5th July, 1958, Wales v Nigeria, half-mile. I won the race in 1m 53s which broke the Welsh Native record held by Jim Alford.
FAVOURITE TRAINING SESSION: In the 1960s Sunday mornings during the winter - 20 x 880 around Marine Lake with 440 recovery; in the summer - 16 x 220 with 110 recovery.
PROUDEST MOMENT: Representing Wales in the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games.
WHOM DO YOU MOST ADMIRE: Seb Coe for his outstanding ability on the track and for all that he has done for the sport - a true ambassador.
PERSONAL AMBITIONS: In recent years, having fractured both femurs (on separate occasions) and had a mini-stroke (TIA) all during running, I have been put on medication which includes statins that has resulted in my legs feeling tired and aching even before I run. In consequence, despite training six days a week I am not running anywhere near as well as I ought to. I am continually striving to overcome this problem but at present with little if any success.
ANY REGRETS: Not having received any coaching, I always used to base my training on ding as much as possible in a session, even in the middle of the track season regularly doing 12 x 440 with a 220 recovery. I realise now that I ought to have been doing less in quantity and more in quality.
EMBARRASSING EXPERIENCES: There have been many, but a rather amusing incident was during a road race many years ago in Mid-Wales there was a shortage of marshals along the course and nearing the finish in the lead I took a wrong turning and found myself approaching the finish line from the opposite direction, with the timkeepers facing the other way. As I crossed the line the look on their faces was a sight to behold.
WHAT CHANGES WOULD I LIKE TO SEE: I would very much like to see handicap track races reintroduced. In the Cheshire/Lancashire areas in the 1960s there used to be handicap meetings sponsored by Widnes Police, St Helens Police, Liverpool Police, BICC Helsby, Pilkington Glass St Helens, Liverpool Parks and Gardens and Chester Council, with a track on the Roodee.
I ran in the half-mile event which involved 3 or 4 heats with about 30 runners in each, the first six in each heat qualifying for the final held later in the programme. When you ran your first handicap race you were given a mark that you were to run off, usually about 75 yards, and if you won the race your mark was reduced to 8 yards, 4 yards if you were second or third, the next time you raced. If you were not placed in any of the races during the season your mark was increased next year.
At the start of the race runners would be positioned at intervals around the track coinciding with their individual marks. The back-markers would usually run off 20 to 30 yards while the frontrunners were off 120 yards and you retained your mark during both heat and final. Being a back-marker you had to run as fast as you could from the gun to ensure you caught the front markers before the finish, which ensured you had to run to your limit.
There was also an excellent club one-mile medley relay incorporated into the programme (the only non-handicap event) with teams consisting of 2 x 220 runners, a x 440 and a half-mile runner, the race progressing in this order. There was a most attractive prize list for each event.
EXTRA ITEMS:
How I came to take up the sport: My friends and I used to play a lot of football with a small ball on the promenade in Rhyl, usually on Sunday mornings, with coats for goalposts and no other boundaries. I gradually realised that I was getting as much, if not more, enjoyment from running around as I was from the football, so I decided to enter the County Athletics Championships at the Coronation Gardens, and won both the 440 and 880 events.
Shortly after this I was called up to do my National Service in the RAF and subsequently found myself in Baghdad. Whilst there I became friendly with a member of Liverpool Pembroke and he put me in touch with their club trainer who I was invited to meet on my demob. This I did and turned up on a Saturday afternoon with my running kit.
We went out for a road run and after a couple of miles he said we would be returning along the same route and suggested that I might like to stride out on the way back, which I did, thinking "I'll show him how good I am", overlooking the fact that I was 20 and he was in his late 50s.
Over a drink he suggested I might like to come down the following week and be introduced to the Pembroke team before taking part in a Mob Run, which was a road race with all the Liverpool clubs taking part. The next week I turned up and learned that the race was to take place in a residential area.
Wanting to make a good impression, I shot into the lead from the gun but after a couple of miles began to feel a little tired and asked a nearby runner if we were near the finish, to which he replied: "We're not halfway yet" .
By now several runners were passing me and I started to get a little concerned at the possibility of being lost in a residential area. Just then a guy in a red and white ringed Pembroke vest came alongside me and asked if I was OK, to which I replied that I was shattered because I had gone off too fast.
To my relief he stayed with me to the finish. I later learned he was the club captain and could easily have won the race. In consequence on the train home I thought what a wonderful club/sport I had become involved with if a fellow competitor would be prepared to forsake his personal performance to help me. We subsequently became great friends and team-mates.
A somewhat reversal of roles occurred recently in the Guilden Sutton 10k, following which a female competitor e-mailed Wrexham club secretary Bob Frost to thank me for having helped and encouraged her to finish what was her first race
PERSONAL BESTS
100 yards: 10.9s, 1958
200 yards: 23.2s , 1958
440 yards: 50.7s, 1958
880 yards: 1m 53.5s, 1958
1 mile: 4m 16s, 1960
1,500m: 3m 56s, 1960
10m: 52m 30s, 1968
20m: 1h 50m 40s, 1966
Half-Marathon: 1h 12m 42s
Marathon: 2h 39m 20s, Harlow, 1966.
TOTAL MILEAGE RUN: 1052 to date - 135,500 miles (No record of number of running shoes worn out in the process).
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