Nerurkar on a new mission

Mike Rowbottom meets a meticulous athlete preparing for the London Marathon

The London Marathon on Sunday week brings together Britain's top two marathon runners, and the contrast is exquisite.

Paul Evans, 35, the former Jewson Eastern League footballer and shoe factory worker, will compete over 26 miles for the first time with a 33- year-old who has degrees from Oxford and Harvard, speaks fluent French, German and Russian - not to mention a smattering of Swahili - and has worked devotedly in recent years for the Church Mission Society. We are talking about Richard Nerurkar.

Seven years ago, Nerurkar - his father is Indian, his mother English - was a master at Marlborough College whose training had to be fitted around marking essays on Chekhov and Lermontov. Since then, this self-confessed "late starter" has turned himself into one of the world's best marathon runners with painstaking dedication, winning the World Cup title in his second race in 1993, and subsequently placing fourth, seventh and fifth respectively in the European championships, world championships and Olympics.

The man who once likened a marathon to a final exam has set about his chosen career in a suitably academic fashion. He has been assisted throughout by a former colleague at Marlborough, Bruce Tulloh, the 1962 European 5,000m champion whose own purist approach to running was subsequently expressed in a run across the United States.

Their attention to detail has been painstaking. Before championship races, Nerurkar has always acquainted himself with the course at the earliest opportunity. Regular training trips at altitude have been organised for him in Font Romeu and Kenya, where his heart and recovery rates and haemoglobin counts have been carefully monitored.

During preparation for his first marathon, in Hamburg four years ago, he and Tulloh set up a table at the roadside so that he could practise his technique at drinks stations.

Nerurkar's reputation as a perfectionist - even Tulloh speaks of his "fanatical attention to detail" - has grown to mythic proportion. Before the 1994 European championships in Helsinki it was rumoured that he had chosen not to fly out with the rest of the British team because the bread rolls were warmer on the Scandinavian airline, SAS.

Nerurkar may never have run a marathon in this country before, but he will - naturally - be well prepared for what lies in store on 13 April, having completed the course in both 1994 and 1995. Not on foot, but on the back of a motorbike as part of the BBC TV commentary team. "It wasn't dangerous," he said. "We were only travelling at the runners' speed of around 12 miles per hour."

That he has not yet competed in a big-money, big-city marathon is entirely of his choosing - it is not for a want of offers.

"It hasn't been a hard decision," he said. "I love running in championship races and representing my country."

Nerurkar's purist approach, his academic background, and the company he keeps - apart from Tulloh, he has also been advised on occasions by the former Olympic hurdles champion and world record holder David Hemery - all hark back to a previous age in British athletics.

He accepts the suggestion - with some reservations. "When people like Bannister, Chataway and Brasher were competing they were doing it while studying for their degrees. I was a late developer in that I didn't concentrate on the sport until after I had gained my qualifications."

But did he not feel that the purity of his approach to running was rare among the current generation of athletes? "Perhaps it is. But if you ask people like Dieter Baumann why they continue to train year in, year out it isn't down to earning money. It's a desire to be the best."

Nerurkar would hardly have been out of place in Chariots of Fire. Indeed, he has something in common with Eric Liddell, the devout Christian who won the 1924 Olympic 400m title and subsequently devoted his life to church missionary work. "He is a role model of mine," said Nerurkar, whose own missionary work has seen him travel widely in eastern Europe and Russia in recent years.

"It was mainly a case of trying to establish contact with leaders of other religious groups in order to set up partnership schemes," said Nerurkar, whose recorded interview with the religious affairs programme First Sight will form part of the pre-marathon service at St Margaret's, Lothbury on the Saturday before the race.

His own personal faith is an integral part of everything he does, but he is careful not to link it too explicitly with his sporting endeavours. "I think it is more a case of influencing the way I deal with people in general," he said. Nerurkar is patently not a Prayers For Victory Christian. But he does admit to feelings of disappointment with his more recent marathons after winning his first two - Hamburg and the World Cup race in San Sebastian.

"I like to think that my experiences in the last few races have made me more determined to produce better performances," he said. "I feel now I am just as determined, if not more so, to win a major marathon."

He is aware of the view in some athletics circles that he has not added to his World Cup victory because he has run too cautiously. Being Nerurkar, it is a charge he considers, carefully, before constructing a response.

"It's true that I have never led at an early stage of a marathon. But four out of my six races have been championships and very tactical. And apart from San Sebastian, the conditions in which the marathons were run were far from ideal. The weather in Helsinki, Gothenburg and Atlanta wasn't suitable for getting out in front and running a good time.

"Marathons nowadays aren't won in the way Ron Hill used to win his races, or the way Hugh Jones won the London in 1982 - getting out to the front in the first couple of miles and staying there. There are two sides to running a marathon. The first requires mental strength and pace judgement. The other side is where you have just got to be aggressive and competitive. The two aspects go hand in hand.

"But you've got to know how much you have got left in the last 10k in order to spread out your efforts."

In the European championships three years ago, he saw a group of three Spaniards move away from him in the closing stages to take the medals. "It was said of me that I was perhaps too controlled, too detached when that happened," he recalled. "But at that stage it is more to do with how fit and strong you are. You can have great tactics, but if you are not fit enough you are not going to win races."

Nerurkar now feels fitter and stronger than at any time in his career, and he goes into the London marathon with a genuine chance of winning. His fitness levels have been fortified by a recent trip to Kenya, where he stayed at Nyahururu - 7,600 feet above sea level and 100 miles north of Nairobi - with his wife, Gail, whom he married last September.

The location - of course - was not random. Nerurkar knew the Kenyan Army team, including runners such as Paul Koech, the national cross-country champion, were training 400 yards down the road.

And having visited Kenya many times in the past eight years, Nerurkar was made welcome on the runs - as was his wife.

"I'm still failing to convert her into a serious runner," he said with a laugh. "She still claims she's a fun runner." Mrs Nerurkar nevertheless accompanied the Kenyan Army on some of their slower runs. Some might call that fun...

Nerurkar, Mr Controlled, admits that there is something "liberating" about experiencing the way Kenyans approach running.

"When I was there they didn't seem to have a very structured training week," he said. "Without wishing to stereotype the Western and Kenyan mindsets, the Kenyans do seem able to approach some things very positively.

"If they have a bad race, they just put it down to a bad day and they say they will try harder next time. It doesn't seem to affect their confidence.

"But at the same time, I am aware that there is something that we bring in our disciplined approach that is also beneficial."

Whatever the philosophical differences, there is no doubt that Nerurkar richly enjoys the experience of Kenya. Five years ago he stayed with the Kenyans in their national training camp 6,200 feet up the slope of Mount Kenya, sharing with runners such as John Ngugi, the five-times world cross- country champion, the cramped living conditions - six-to-a-room dormitories - and simple diet of tea, bread, eggs, ugali (a maize dish), stew and cabbage.

"When the day's running was over, in the early evening, we would pile into a car and drive down to bathe properly in one of the many streams that run off from Mount Kenya's shrinking glaciers," he wrote.

It is an elemental scene. Men intent on discovering the greatness within themselves, communing with Mother Nature.

Paul Evans once went to Kenya too, but he didn't like it and came home.

Different strokes for different folks. But it all makes for a potentially memorable meeting.