It’s been a good month for armchair athletic aficionados. If, like me, you didn’t make the trip up to Edinburgh to watch the World Cross Country Championships, and instead chose to watch it from the comfort of your living room, you will have witnessed some stellar performances from some of the world’s leading distance running stars.
There were also some excellent performances from some of our own athletes- topped by Running Fitness women’s editor Liz Yelling’s excellent 15th place. And yet, while most of us recognise this as an exceptional run against high quality competition, I wondered what anyone new to the sport would have made of the races?
In the last 20 years, the emergence of the African nations has added a new dimension to the sport. While there have been many stand-out performances from individual athletes since the early 1960’s- Abebe Bikila, Filbert Bayi and Miruts Yifter to name but a  few- it’s the way that the Ethiopian and Kenyan nations have so embraced international competition that has really changed.
I wonder if there are enough performances from non-African athletes to inspire Britain’s youngsters to take up the sport? As much as I like Haile Gebrselassie, I know that I’ll never run like him-nor will thousands of others.
While Gebrselassie may not be running London, there are a host of top Africans taking part, and with Felix Limo and Martin Lel swapping victories between them in the last three years, what chance of a non-African victory? Perhaps I’ll be proved wrong, but I doubt it. The tide has changed and , as King Canute found out, it’s a difficult thing to stop.

    Yours in running

    David Castle