THE KANSAS IRONMAN

Middle distance events are not easy.

They are short enough to think that you can sprint most, if not all of the way, and then long enough to make you lose hope once you realise it is too far to keep up this frantic pace.

These extremely difficult events, the 400m, 800m and 1500m events, are ones that have brought out some of the greatest moments in Olympic history.

I am sure you all remember Derek Redmond’s 400m run at the Barcelona Games, where coming into the Final, Redmond led at the turn until he pulled his hamstring. Not giving up, he continued on through immense pain to finish the race, demonstrating his courageous fight to finish what he started and to inspire millions around the world to persevere through anything.

Cathy Freeman’s brilliant run at the Sydney Games in the 400m Final was spine tingling. Even at the 200m mark, she had not clinched the race and it took digging deep and pushing herself to suddenly take the lead and win the race.

One name that you may not have heard of before is one of the greatest American middle distance runner Glenn Cunningham.

Cunningham did not start off his running career in the best of ways. When he was eight years old, his legs were very badly burned in a small gasoline explosion. The doctors predicted that he would never walk again and were surprised that he did not die in the fire.

With great determination and many hours of therapy, he gradually regained the ability to walk. This took time and using a fence to aid in his walking every day helped him to succeed in walking again. This took two years of immense effort to come back to this level.

When he was 12 he went back to school, jogging regularly. He ran for the joy of running and would beat every athlete of his age during school races.

His amazing courage to defy the impossible, to come back and run again, let alone walk, after experts said that it could not be done, is an inspiration to everyone.

And this wasn’t the end of his story. 

He continued running and with the iron determination that he showed in his youth, trained hard and was selected in the Olympic team for the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. He finished 4^th in the 1500m and had not even reached his peak yet with still more to come.

In 1934, Cunningham competed in the 1 mile Event (1600m - 4 laps) at Madison Square Garden, an event that thousands upon thousands turned up to watch, and many thousands were turned away as the venue was full.

After the first lap, Cunningham was a close second, but made his move on the second, taking the lead and holding it steady.  The pace was fast and he wanted to see if he could set a fast pace and push at the end.

The third lap, he went even faster and looked hard to beat.  This continued, opening up a large gap to the next placed runner.  The crowd cheered loudly for him, realising that though he was beating their home favourite, he was running at such an incredible pace that something amazing was about to happen.

Cunningham crossed the line in first placed in a time of 4:06:70 with a new world record!

His strategy of running the last half of the race faster than the first had paid off.  His split times were impressive: 1:01:80, 1:04:00, 1:01:80, 0:59:10.

After his impressive performance at the 1932 Games, and then his world record in 1934, Cunningham was feeling very confident heading into the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.

These Games, which were watched on by millions and Hitler himself, would be an Olympics to remember.

His 1500m race was extremely fast, with Cunningham running a new USA record of 3:48:40, only just beaten by New Zealand runner Jack Lovelock 3:47:80.  He finished 2^nd, receiving a silver medal for not just his race, but for the years and years of persistence, training, effort and determination to get him there in the first place.

Glenn Cunningham is one inspirational athlete. Going from being told he will never walk, to setting a world record over 1 mile and then making the Olympics, and winning a silver medal, is something that we can all be inspired by.

As his favourite verse from Isaiah 40:31 quoted:

"But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."