Why
Turing?
This race is named after Alan
Turing, founder of computer science, mathematician, and
indispensable code breaker at Bletchley Park in WWII. He was
also a 2:46 marathon runner and whilst a Fellow at King’s
College Cambridge, trained on the riverside footpaths now used
for the Turing Trail Relay. Simon
Greenish, Director of Bletchley Park and Turing Trail Relay
Presenter of Awards, mentioned (3/07) that former Bletchley
Park Chairman Chris Chattaway had told him that he recalled
running against Alan Turing.
The following is adapted from an
article by P Butcher in the magazine Runner's World
(September, 1999), 56-57.
Alan Turing ran a little while
he was at Sherbourne school, usually when football was
cancelled because of bad weather. He did not run while an
undergraduate at Cambridge, preferring to row, but once he had
won his fellowship to King's College he began to run more
seriously, his frequent route being from Cambridge to Ely and
back, a distance of around 50 km. He did a little running
while at Bletchley but only when he moved to the National
Physical Laboratory did he take up running more seriously. J F
Harding was the secretary of Walton Athletic Club at this time
and he recalls first meeting Turing out on a run:-
We heard him rather than saw
him. He made a terrible grunting noise when he was running,
but before we could say anything to him, he was past us like
a shot out of a gun. A couple of nights later, we kept up
with him long enough for me to ask him who he ran for. When
he said nobody, we invited him to join Walton. He did and
immediately became our best runner.
Looking back, he was the
typical absent-minded professor. He looked different to the
rest of the lads; he was rather untidily dressed, good
quality clothes mind, but no creases in them; he used a tie
to hold his trousers up; if he wore a necktie, it was never
knotted properly; and he had hair that just stuck up at the
back. He was very popular with the boys, but he wasn't one
of them. He was a strange character, a very reserved sort,
but he mixed in with everyone quite well: he was even a
member of our committee.
We had no idea what he did,
and what a great man he was. We didn't realise it until all
the Enigma business came out. We didn't even know where he
worked until he asked us if Walton would have a match with
the NPL. It was the first time I'd been in the grounds.
Another time, we went on our first ever foreign trip to
Nijmegen in Holland he couldn't come, but he gave me five
pounds, which was a lot of money in those days, and said
"Buy the boys a drink for me".
I asked him one day why he
punished himself so much in training. He told me "I have
such a stressful job that the only way I can get it out of
my mind is by running hard; its the only way I can get some
release."
Turing came fifth in the AAA
marathon which was used as a qualifying event for the 1949
Olympic games. His time was 2 hours 46.03 minutes which by
modern marathon times does not look so great but was good at
that time. To put it in perspective, the winning Olympic time
was only 10 minutes better at the 1948 Olympics. A leg injury
put an end to further serious running by Turing. However, even
after he moved to Manchester he still occasionally represented
Walton in events. The last event he ran for the club was in
April 1950 when he was on the Walton relay team in the London
to Brighton race. Also a member of the same Walton team was
Chris Chataway, who a few years later went on to help Roger
Bannister break the four minute mile.
Further information:
Alan Turing's current
successor at King's College Cambridge has run in all
three (2007-2009) Turing Trail Relays.
The famous Apple Computer
logo (a rainbow coloured apple with a bite out of it)
was in homage to Alan Turing who died of cyanide
poisoning in 1954, supposedly from deliberately taking a
bite from an apple laced with cyanide.
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