Kensington Gardens. I focused on the Round Pond in the distance, pleased to see that it seemed to remain stationary. When I ran, the world glided by. No movement up or down. My body just moved horizontally forward, driven by the regular strides of my legs. Any jogging, any rolling, meant a loss of energy. And a loss of energy meant a loss of speed.
I enjoyed the discipline of running. Not just the will-power required to force yourself to keep going when your body told you to stop. But the discipline of ensuring that every muscle in your body was moving as it should, when it should.
The commentators had raved about my running style. But I was not a natural. I had learned it through years of single-minded concentration. And through Frank.
I had first come across Frank when I was running at Cambridge. He coached middle-distance running at a club in North London. Occasionally he would come up to Cambridge to coach some of us. More often, I would travel down on Sundays to learn from him.
I certainly had some natural talent. I had enjoyed cross-country running even as an eleven-year-old. I would voluntarily run for miles over the moors at home in Yorkshire, something my friends found very difficult to understand. As I had passed puberty, I had filled out. My leg muscles had grown in size and strength and I had picked up the speed you need to be a good middle-distance runner. At Cambridge, I had thrown myself into athletics and had achieved a blue in my first year.
But it was Frank who had really taught me how to run. Not just in the body, but also in the mind. I had the necessary determination; he knew how to channel it. We worked long and hard at my technique. During speed training, he exhorted me to put 100 per cent into each leg, when my body told me to go 90 per cent. And he taught me how to race, how to ration not just my physical energy but my mental energy as well.
And it worked. It was hard and slow, but every year I ran just that little bit faster. A year after I left Cambridge, I ran for Britain for the first time. The next season I just missed selection for the Olympics. Over the next six years, my speed and consistency improved just enough to win me a place.
That year Frank and I put everything we could into getting me to the peak of my mental and physical fitness. The bank was very understanding, my job became at best part-time.
The heats went well. I managed to run them hard enough to qualify for the final whilst still leaving a lot in reserve.
On the day of the final, I felt as ready as I ever could be. I was fit. I was determined. There were four other runners who had done times faster than me, but I was going to beat them all. My plan was simple. I would start the race fast and lead from the front. There were two or three faster finishers than me. I had to make sure they were beaten by the last hundred metres.
I followed my plan, but for the first six hundred metres most of the field kept up with me. Whenever I drew away, the others would catch up. Then, with two hundred metres to go I lengthened my stride slightly and began slowly to pull away from the others. For a hundred and fifty metres I was running five yards ahead of the best runners in the world. The crowd in the huge Olympic stadium cheered me on – I was convinced they were just cheering me alone. It was the best fifteen seconds of my life.
Then, fifty metres from the line, two green shirts barged past me as a Kenyan and an Irishman battled for the line. I told my legs to move faster, stride longer, but they didn't obey. Suddenly the crowd were cheering for the two backs a yard or two ahead of me, not for me. It was as though I were slowly moving backwards.
I made it over the line in third place and won a bronze medal.
For several months afterwards, I basked in the attention I received. From the media, from people at work, people I met in business, even from people in the street. But despite the euphoria, I could not hide a simple fact from myself. I had lost. I had put everything into that race, a year of my life had been devoted to that one-and-a- half-minute period. And I had lost.
My time was easily my personal best. As I resumed training and racing the next season, my times came nowhere close. It began to depress me. I became more and more sure I would not be able to better that one effort. And it would take all my energy just to get close.
I wanted time for other things. For friends. I wanted a job that would stretch me. I wanted a new challenge.
So I quit.
When I told Frank, I expected him to be furious with me. But he took it very well. In fact, he was very supportive.
'I've seen too many young men sacrifice their lives to athletics,' he said. 'Go out into the world and do something.'
Secretly, I think he knew, as I did, that I had got as far as I was going to go. He didn't want me to lose years of my life aiming for the gold medal which would never come.
So I gave up. And I had gone out into the world to win at something new. Trading.
I sped towards the pond, passing a couple of middle-aged, wheezing joggers moving at walking pace. A red setter bounded up towards me, ignoring the shouted plea of its owner to heel. He bounced up and down beside me for a few yards before darting off after a terrier yapping at a squirrel in a tree. He leapt over an embracing couple under a tree, who took no notice.
I still needed to run. I ran three or four times a week, usually the three or four miles round the perimeter of Hyde Park, as fast as I could. I needed my fix of adrenalin, the masochistic pleasure of feeling totally exhausted.
I thought of yesterday's Sweden trade. A smile came to my lips as I recalled the sweet feeling of knowing I was right and the market was wrong. Or rather Hamilton and I were right. I had done well for a rookie trader. It had been the first time I had been under pressure, real pressure, and I had come through it well. I had been scared at one point, but I had held my nerve. The fear had been a necessary part of the exhilaration. Just as a runner had to go through the pain to experience the adrenalin rush, so a trader had to feel fear.
I looked forward to what Hamilton would have to say to me when he returned. It had been my first real opportunity to prove myself to him, and I had taken it. I hoped he would appreciate it.
I dodged a gaggle of chattering Arabic women out for an evening stroll in their black yashmaks and gold facemasks, and veered left towards the exit of the park. I lengthened my stride as I ran the last couple of hundred yards to my flat, nagging doubts snapping at my heels.
I pulled the keys to my building out of the pocket of my shorts, my chest heaving, sweat soaking my exhausted muscles. I opened the door, stepped over the debris of unopened junk mail and freesheets, and pulled myself up the stairs to the first floor.
I let myself into my flat, quickly stretched my muscles, and collapsed on the sofa. I stared around me, too tired to move. It was a small, convenient flat. One bedroom, a living room with an alcove kitchen just off it, and a hallway. I kept it tidy; I had to since it was such a small space. The furniture was simple, practical and cheap. On the mantelpiece was a small selection of my most treasured running trophies, and a black and white photograph of my father and mother leaning against a dry-stone wall. They smiled down at me with the lost happiness of twenty years ago.
It wasn't much, but I liked it. A convenient bolthole.
Groaning, I pulled myself up off the sofa, and hobbled on stiffening muscles into the bathroom for a soak.
As soon as I got to work the next day, I grabbed the
There it was. Eleven and a quarter dollars. The stock had risen by more than 50 per cent overnight! I turned round to see Debbie coming into the trading room clutching a cup of coffee. She saw the page I was reading.
'Well?' she said.
'Eleven and a quarter,' I said with a grin.
'I don't believe it!' she said, grabbing the paper from me. She let out a whoop, and threw the paper up in the air. Everyone turned round to look.
'I'm rich!' she screamed.
'Not very rich,' I said. 'It's only a few thousand dollars.'
'Oh be quiet, you old misery,' she said. 'I'm going right out to get some champagne. We've got some orange juice in the fridge. Buck's Fizz all round.' I was dubious about this but Gordon and Rob made smacking noises with
