Colin Sheridan: Why I'm rooting for Spencer Matthews, the marathon runner I never expected to like

There are many reasons to resist Matthews. His television persona supplied several: spoiled rich boy, charming cad, cheeky chappy but he is a willing learner and that makes him listenable

Spencer Matthews ran 2:49:46 at the Berlin Marathon. Pic: Antony Jones/Getty Images for The Turmeric Co.

I had never expected Spencer Matthews to become useful to my life. This is among the stranger developments of middle age, alongside hoping not to be invited to things and discovering the restorative qualities of Greek yoghurt. Yet here we are. Autumn marathon season has arrived, and the former Made in Chelsea star is in my ears, asking people who know how to run why the rest of us find it so difficult.

Chicago was on Sunday. Berlin, a fortnight ago. Dublin is two weeks away, with New York the following Sunday. Around the country, people are finishing long runs and entering that delicate period when every sneeze, every banged shin, is like the end of civilisation.

I am trying to become a better runner myself, discovering that wanting it badly does not automatically make your legs cooperate.

Matthews’s podcast, Untapped, has become an unexpectedly agreeable companion. It has topped Apple’s fitness charts in Ireland and Britain. I can understand why, which is not something I expected to find myself saying about someone who says “it's an absolute belter, mate,” about everything from a new type of caffeine gel, to the thrill of fathering his fourth child.

There are many reasons to resist him. His television persona supplied several: spoiled rich boy, charming cad, cheeky chappy. To be fair, he appears admirably comfortable acknowledging that earlier version of himself. This helps. There is something disarming about a man who knows the case against him and does not require you to pretend it never existed.

More irritatingly, he can run. Often topless, around Battersea Park.

Matthews clocked 2:49:46 in Berlin, taking eight minutes off his previous best. He is documenting his pursuit of a sub-2:45 marathon in a YouTube series. This is exceptionally good amateur running. For anyone hovering around three hours, it is sufficiently good to provoke both admiration and petty resentment.

What makes him listenable, though, is that he still sounds like somebody trying to understand the thing. He asks athletes and coaches the questions the rest of us would ask if we had them cornered over coffee. How many miles per week is enough? How hard should it feel? What should you eat? What the hell does Zone 2 actually mean? Why does doing more sometimes produce less?

He needs the answers himself. We get to come along. In a crowded market of performance podcasts, his curiosity is welcome.

His enthusiasm can also get ahead of him. He deploys a similar cavalier attitude to his training as he did to boozy nights out in Boujis in South Kensington during his Made in Chelsea heyday. He is a coach's nightmare, often making runs up as he goes along. It's a devil-may-care approach that makes heading out and hammering a session sound bloody irresistible, mate. I recognise the impulse. Unfortunately, my legs have never accepted charisma as a recovery strategy.

His recent suggestion that running a marathon is easy prompted criticism online. The hyperbole was likely lost on many, but there is a distinction between completing a distance within your capabilities and racing it at your limit. Listen to enough of his canon and you'll often hear Matthews admit this. But breezy talk about marathons risks making somebody else’s enormous undertaking sound like a failure of nerve.

For the runner juggling shifts, childcare, injury and the exhaustion of earning a living, getting to the start line may be the achievement of the year. Encouragement loses something when it makes the difficulty disappear.

Matthews is wealthy. He has businesses, a public profile and four children with his Irish wife, Vogue Williams. His life is busy, but busyness and disadvantage are different things. Money can buy coaching, treatment, childcare and the space to recover. Plenty of runners are fitting their mileage around obligations they cannot rearrange.

Calling him an everyman requires considerable generosity with the definition. Still, I recognise the dog of a runner in him. The ambition. The belief that the next training block might deliver what the last one promised. You can acknowledge somebody’s advantages without declaring every achievement worthy of an asterisk. The support matters. So does the effort.

There are other approaches to marathon improvement. Chinese influencer Abeeeer recently apologised after photographs showed her taking a bicycle lift during the Berlin Marathon. She had celebrated a personal best. Her sponsor, Brooks China, ended its relationship with her. Most runners have imagined alternative transport late in a marathon. Generally, we understand that accepting it changes the nature of the achievement.

Last week, a friend told me that some people on London’s running-influencer scene were paying faster runners to record their Strava efforts, outsourcing the exercise while retaining the congratulations.

These stories should not stand for modern running. The parks are full of people quietly doing the work, most of whom will never secure a sponsorship deal or Strava following above the dozen. But they expose the peculiar incentive to acquire the appearance of achievement without enduring its inconvenience.

Matthews is selling something too, of course: a podcast, a personality, a journey. I am aware of the transaction. I also find myself rooting for him.

Beneath the polished production and occasional bravado, he seems willing to remain a learner. He wants to improve, asks for help and has to live with whatever the clock says.

In two weeks, thousands of people will discover their own answer on Dublin’s streets. Some will exceed their ambitions. Others will finish disappointed, exhausted and proud.

I hope Matthews gets his 2:45. Why? Because, in a world of bombast and bluster, he still has to lace up his shoes and bloody run like the rest of us. And that makes him an absolute belter, mate.

A timely reminder on need to feel

For much of the sporting world, baseball exists on the periphery. Yet through Moneyball, it supplied the language of modern sport: metrics, marginal gains, the conviction that whatever matters can be measured.

Then along comes Yoshinobu Yamamoto, carrying a notebook. The Los Angeles Dodgers committed $325 million to the Japanese pitcher. Between innings, he consults a black journal containing his own scouting reports and pitching notes. 

In the cathedral of analytics, there is still room for handwriting. His preparation is equally distinctive. Longtime trainer Osamu Yada favours mobility, balance, breathing exercises and handstands. Yamamoto has never lifted weights under his tutelage. He throws a lightweight training javelin to refine the coordination of his delivery.

The Dodgers hired Yada as a consultant. Naturally, tall tales gather around such a figure: that his notebook contains insights beyond any computer; that the Dodgers examined his system and conceded they could never improve it. These remain embellishments. One courting club did reportedly present him with a javelin bearing its logo. The results require no embroidery. 

Last October, Yamamoto threw 96 pitches in World Series Game 6. The following evening, he returned to deliver eight scoreless outs and finish Game 7. He was named the series’ most valuable player. Japan’s contribution to baseball has become an exchange of ideas as well as players: different approaches to preparation, craftsmanship and the cultivation of attention. 

From Ichiro to Shohei Ohtani and Yamamoto, American baseball has repeatedly been invited to reconsider its assumptions. There is a purity in Yamamoto’s method. A computer can describe a pitch. It cannot experience the sensation of releasing it, or recreate the intuition earned through thousands of repetitions. His notebook gives that experience somewhere to live. 

Moneyball taught sport to count. Yamamoto reminds us that somebody still has to feel.

GAA at its best in times of grief

Darragh Nelson’s death at 36 leaves a family bereaved and a sporting community heartbroken. The former Dublin footballer captained Ballyboden St Enda’s to All-Ireland glory in 2016, but the tributes speak most movingly of his generosity, friendship and care for others. 

At times like these, the GAA is at its most profoundly powerful. The rivalries recede; the bonds remain. A club becomes somewhere to carry grief together, to remember, to stand beside those facing unimaginable loss. No community can soften the injustice of a life cut short. It can, however, ensure that those left behind never have to face it alone.

Worrying signs for Connacht

Connacht’s defeat in Glasgow on Friday was strikingly un-Stuart Lancaster-like: poor discipline, a vulnerable set-piece and familiar failings undermining flashes of attacking quality. Lancaster’s reputation rests on making teams organised, accurate and difficult to beat. Connacht too often looked the opposite. 

The excuses are drying up. They have an outstanding coach, a superb stadium, improved facilities and better players. Those advantages must translate into something more tangible than another promise of brighter days. Nobody expects perfection in October, but this season has to deliver a marked improvement in performances and results. Otherwise, what exactly is all this investment actually achieving?