Like most of the people participating in this weekend’s Edinburgh Marathon, Chris Moon will have a target time.
But Chris Moon is not like most people. Most people have not had to negotiate their freedom with Khmer Rouge leaders who were determined to execute them. Most people haven’t been blown up by a landmine in Mozambique, losing two limbs and most of the blood in their body. Most people who run marathons doso with two legs. Most people are content to drag themselves through a marathon once, tick the box and move on but the Strathaven Strider has completed “70-odd” since the 1995 explosion that should have killed him. For good measure, he has also walked the length of both Britain and Cambodia, finished the infamous Marathon des Sables across the Sahara Desert and had three cracks at the 135-mile Badwater Death Valley ultra-marathon, where the daytime temperature was close to that required to slow-cook a chicken. A pleasant spring Sunday in Edinburgh should pose few problems, then. “It still always seems a long way,” cautions the 47-year-old, disabusing any notions that the 26-and-a-bit-mile plod is becoming old hat. “I don’t think it’s ever easy but the harder you work the easier it gets. It’s always a challenge, though. It’s stopped being about just getting round now it’s about getting a half-decent time. I’vemoved away from running withthe people in fancy dress.” Last month in London was the catalyst for that change, Moon breaking the four-hour mark for the first time since being rendered 90% disabled. He attributes that improvement to the heightened standard of prosthesis available, which has allowed him to train in a way that he simply couldn’t before. “Its one of those things that’s quite significant for me because I’ve waited for a number of years and battled hard to get back to what Iused to have,” he admits. “That’s the essence of the challenge for me. It means I’m running the same kind of time most average guys in their 40s could expect and now I’m hoping I can pull it out of the hat a little bit quicker than London where I ran 3.58.51: the magical minute.” Running has been a constant thread through Moon’s remarkable life since childhood, when he used to scurry around his family’s Wiltshire farm. He continued to do so throughout his time as a captain the army and then while working for the Halo Trust, a mine-clearing charity. It was while engaged in such worthy work with two colleagues that he was taken captive in Cambodia by a man he christened “Mr Clever”. He eventually persuaded the commander to release them and led his friends 30 miles across mine-strewn jungle to safety. He was not so fortunate two years later. While walking through a “cleared” area in Mozambique, he disturbed an anti-personnel mine sewn by the government, which blew off his lower right leg and necessitated the amputation of his right hand. His circulation ravaged by blood loss, his heart should have gone into cardiac arrest.
“I’m extraordinarily lucky to be alive, without a doubt,” he concedes of a series of scrapes chronicled in his astounding autobiography, One Step Beyond. “Being so fit was one of the reasons I lived. I think it would be a mistake to ever think one was immortal but what I have learned is I’ve lived when I probably shouldn’t have because I’ve always taken absolute personal responsibility, then worked really hard and haven’t given up. Iunderstand that it’s the easiest thing in the world when faced with really uncomfortable situations to feel you can’t keep going but when you’re in hell, don’t stop.”