THANK YOU TO RON STONEHOUSE’ by Christina Boxer

‘THANK YOU TO RON STONEHOUSE’ by Christina Boxer, former AFD athlete, Triple Olympian, 1500m Commonwealth Champion and first British Woman to break 2 minutes for 800m (1.59.05) in 1979.

I was a very timid, nervous and unconfident 12-year-old when I first met Ron at AFD, someone who would go on to be one of the most important and influential people in my life. The week before I had finished 6th in the Hampshire Schools Athletics Championships against girls up to two years older than me. My school had suggested I join Camberley AC, a club closer to where I lived, but the then President of AFD, the late Jim Horsborough, had luckily spotted this tiny, scrawny schoolgirl down in 6th spot from high up in the stands at the Alexandra Stadium in Portsmouth. He was ‘talent spotting’ for AFD and asked to speak with my parents, suggesting to them that I went along to meet their running coach, Ron Stonehouse, at Sunday morning training.

How one event/decision can change a person’s life! Ron’s warm and un-pushy approach was just what I needed to give me the confidence to join AFD and to start my wonderful athletics journey to Olympics, British Records and Commonwealth Gold. By age 14 years I was English Schools and National Champion, excelling at 800m and cross country off just three training sessions a week, with Ron passionate about not over training young athletes. At 15 years old I had started to focus a bit more on 1500m, enjoying much success and running national age-best and Junior European qualifying times. But then, as is so common with teen-age girls going through puberty I got an injury and started to fill out and put on a bit of weight.

Ron NEVER mentioned the additional weight I was carrying or tried to push me while injured. Instead he encouraged my parents to talk with specialists and for me to take a break until the injury was resolved. He still invited me along to the club and to the club social events to keep me involved and did not push me aside when injured. I did drift away a little though, focusing on important school exams. My parents were also wonderful and never pushed, but just encouraged me when I was a couple of years older to still have a go back in athletics as I had enjoyed going along to AFD so much. For four years my times never improved from when I was a 15-year-old, and many thought I was just another young flash in the pan, but Ron never stopped believing in my talent. He gradually built up my training and by age 19, I was beginning to return to form and at age 20 won my first GB International vest. At 21, I gained selection for my first of four Commonwealth Games, running a disappointing final in the 1500m and at age 22 became the first British woman to break 2 minutes, recording 1.59.05 in the European Cup in Turin behind quite a few very muscly, huge Eastern European runners. From then on, my running really took off.

Ron had always believed in ‘Long Term Athlete Development’ (LTAD) long before it gained lots of academic publicity and articles in magazines. He also spent extra time marking out reps on the grass Polo fields at Aldershot to avoid the stresses of training on synthetic tracks too often. Many of my rivals had trained much more than me when I was in my early teens but then struggled to progress when older or dropped out completely from the sport due to injury or burn-out. Ron also believed in quality training for middle distance runners, focusing less on lots of mileage, and this really suited me. He was a master at giving sessions that really created lots of lactic acid but ones that you were able to recover from, thereby avoiding burn-out. I also benefitted from the fact that Ron trained most of the male runners in the club too and I often had the benefit of being pushed by some of them, not least of all Roland Yeomans who would often sacrifice his own training to help pace me and some of the other girls.