"Certainly my 1983 result of 2:17:58 was my best run .The best athletic performance of my career without a shadow of a doubt. I trained very, very hard and it went very well and the conditions on the day were absolutely brilliant. Drizzle and perfect temperature,
added to that, of course, in those days, there were an awful lot of people running a similar time.  I was with a group of 12 people for the second half of the race. I just sat on them. I feel genuinely sorry for people running sub-2.20 these days because you are running on your own very often that is the real problem. I have got very mixed feelings about London. I have got enormous affection for the race and always will do but it is not the race it used to be. Many, many reasons for that are mirrored through the rest of the sport. There is not the depth anymore but also with the London there are 20 athletes who disappear now and you almost have a separate race. In the 80's very often you had no idea who was going to win. Sometimes you would get someone who was nowhere near the lead for a long time. Mike Gratton came from a long way back, Charlie Spedding came from a long way back. Jorgensen who won in 88' --He was only just in front of me at the Cutty Sark. He was actually out of shot of the leaders and yet in the second half, bided his time. You could do that and for me that made the event much more exiting."