welcome to got to run my name is gordon the coolest and i am delighted to be hosting the show today and i'm delighted to be interviewing roger robinson who is an old dear friend of mine and the author of a wonderful new book when running made history welcome roger thank you goodness always good to talk to you and thank you so will centers for hosting us today indeed thank you will i'm so excited to talk about this book i've been wanting you to write this book for a long time this book is unique it's a personal history but it's fixed really comprehensive it starts with roger's boyhood memories from one nine hundred forty eight and goes all the way up through two thousand and fifteen so it's it's extremely comprehensive but just beautifully written and so wide ranging in what it covers and i'm just going to read briefly what roger's conception of the book is this book is an eye witness record of those moments whether they be a single dramatic race or several races that give access to an historical process roger why did you that i'm aware of the that we really need a history of the modern running movement you know from say nineteen seventy six through the through to prison and i was kind of gathering materials for that and had it in my head that i would write that but as i kept working on it i realized that i was constantly drawing on my own experience because i've been around so much in so many different respects and as a rather as a spectator's as an official stadium announce a television commentator journalist and so on a mid pack participant so you really are you have so many different points of view so the the lens through which you see all these events the way the events qualify for inclusion in the book is you either you were there before for all of these events though and all of these events also in some ways made history they were running events but they made history so explain that a little bit how does a running event make history i want to that extra dimension because it's always seemed to me that the sports and sports writing and sport media coverage which gets put in the special category as if it's belongs at the back of the newspaper and it's not at the front if you if you see  so yeah because they have helped the bathrooms it help to make the history of those places and place and that's really the concept that i was working on size trying to show that running has got outside running i was trying to write a history of running you know people said well why is this race  in that region and i said most because that was fascinating for running you know does he develop that lyndon winning the boston marathon in terrible conditions great story but that's not making history outside running kind words when lose the runner's perspective if you say we know runners have always known these things and so you know perhaps the book exists in a sense to educate non runners more than more than runners but you as a runner are still able to are able to so beautifully describe how these events are running events but then somehow beyond beyond running events transcending running and you know mabs race was amazing for its metaphorical for it you know meaning outside of running but talk about going back to your childhood and your young adulthood and your and then your competitive years because i'm old enough to enjoy it going right back in memory and literally point of view you know i'm a historian but  is the completely new take that i gave to the phenomena of east african writing chapter on that how is that everybody's written about altitude and you know economics and all of that when i chose to write about write about was not w take a comparison it's as if the world cup soccer that we've all just been watching right as if the last sixteen teams all came from the southern part of south america and even that's a much bigger geographical area bally produces literally ninety five percent of the world's best athletes yeah so all culture could have been forgiven for getting a bit grumpy about it but we actually have just as we created professionalism suddenly they changed completely you know as someone who's who in over fifty f lee now and you know i take myself seriously as an athlete and i would hope that others do as well i do feel like there's been a real revolution there which running made history because it helped them societies to heal and i was in the stadium and so and i had to conduct the presentation of the olympic medal to nick willis which should have been happening in christchurch at that time but right at christchurch was destroyed the he grabbed me by the shirt and threw me back she was attacked by a man and she was defended by a man and i say what's massa's is when she use the active not the passive and when she happens is that she sat down and she insisted on getting itself on television and using that using the whole story in order to make a stand for women's opportunities and she went on working and working working and looking in the loops and you know founding attractive and sounding guys and suddenly a couple of attractive women show up you know who's going to complain sadly just welcome people as runners and that's always the case just as now we welcome them whatever religion whatever work they do whatever politics they are if you're running running right and the community welcomes you right so getting back to moments that were difficult to write about you said the earthquake in in christchurch as a yorker i think of the new york city marathon following nine eleven which and nine eleven itself which you know was an attack on everyone who chose this to be you know out in the in the world and on new york city in particular of course that you know an attack on the whole world and you were here in new york on that day describe what that was like is one of the little gems for this book was was when i was talking with media after the boston bombings on those i think it was a new zealand radio television station sometimes because there's another things i would've saw at the time after nine eleven i just started to write for running times they chose to publish a piece i'd written about running in central park on that day and what  job at that tion as a journalist i was out on the course just traveling by subway and watching this is before everything was on the line and i had to stand there in brooklyn and wait and see if my wife was still alive if you sue them because resilience and strength but it was it was terrifying it was really the whole period was terrifying i think running for a lot of people played a role of of healing and solace and the race you know showed the me and to you is what running is doing and could do for the environment yes and i so i think that is a very powerful industry and interest group and we ought to be doing more for the places where we run amazing book it really is i feel like you put your heart and soul in to it and and again just the combination of the personal and the historical you know writing from drawing on so many sources from your memories to your scrapbooks to conversations to you know transcripts of interviews what have you and just the the selection the way it goes through and cover so many different things but each of them so personally and so so thoughtfully it's a gift