MISC (Last update: 2 June, 2011 )

2011 POEM - Number 9 Number 9 Number 9

Four months of training
Tucked away
Like coins saved
For a rainy day.

Taper-down time
As ideal as it sounds
Gives rise to the thought
Will my legs get me round?

It takes more than fitness
As previous runs show
More than bravery
The more you know

A Marathon distance
Is something special
Like a magnetic field
To test your metal

The legs feel great
That first 10k
Where people laugh
Along the way

By mile twenty
Heads are bowed
Smiles are harder
Despite the crowd

Your enter race track
Called Muscle-bury
Cross the line
Faking your hurry.

Are we likely
To do this again?
In a few months time
We'll be thinking of Ten!

Good luck all... tomorrow, Sunday.
George McBean ~ May 2011

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ORIGINS of the AYE Club
The AYE Club was founded in 2006 after a family team organised by Michael McCabe competed in the Hairy Haggis relay. The Edinburgh Marathon of that year marked the centenary of the 1906/7 rugby season when Scotland won the Triple Crown by defeating England at Blackheath. Michael's grandfather, George Frew played all the games in that Triple Crown winning side during his first international season and became captain of the Scottish side in 1910. A biography of George Frew "The Road to Blackheath and Beyond" can be read here. The book includes some curious parallels between George Frew's rugby internationals and Michael's marathons in London and Edinburgh.

Before the 2006 Edinburgh marathon, Michael's mother, daughter of George Frew, showed him an article from her senior citizen's "SAGA" magazine about the Ever Presents. The Ever Presents are the remarkable runners who have completed every single London marathon and provided the inspiration for the AYE club. The idea of setting up a similar club for the Edinburgh Marathon was born. Michael contacted the Edinburgh Marathon organisers after the 4th official marathon and found that around 100 runners had completed every event since 2003. A few names were tossed around until the "26.2 Mile AYE Club" or "AYE Club" standing for All Years Edinburgh, was the one that stuck. Appropriately AYE is also a Scottish word for "Ever". After the 2010 marathon there were 47 AYE runners and 20 Ever Presents. The AYE Club will celebrate its 10th running of the Edinburgh Marathon during the Olympic year of 2012 and will hopefully continue long after that.

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