Words: Ultra Magazine
Before running, Zarei (who moved to England in 1966) was
“a 20 a day smoker, who couldn’t run for the bus.”
James Zarei might be the best British ultra-runner that you’ve never heard of, and he only started running at the ripe young age of 39.
A twice winner of the iconic Spartathlon, it wasn’t until his sixth finish that he was atop the podium in first place, eight years after his first running of the event and 10 years after starting ultramarathon running.
The Persian-born man of Croydon is also the only British man of the modern era to run more than 1,000km in six days, a mere one mile short of the 623 miles 1,320 yards George Littlewood covered at Madison Square Garden in New York back in 1888. Littlewood’s mark stood as a world record for 96 years, as a British record still.
Zarei was running over 100 years later and is still the closest we have seen to the British six-day mark. The current generation’s best Dan Lawson has yet to break 1,000km, even though he has passed the 100 mile, 24hr and 48hr personal bests of his predecessor. Such is the strength of the six-day total only seven men in history have bettered it.
The pedestrians of the 1800s filled stadiums with their exploits, whereas today we are oddities in the regrowth of trail and ultramarathon as a sport.
Zarei won multiple 24hr events and his PB of 261.128km puts him in rarefi ed air for British men, especially when you consider only the pre-super shoe era. Before running, Zarei (who moved to England in 1966) was “a 20 a day smoker, who couldn’t run for the bus”, according to a wonderful article written in The Independent newspaper back in 1996, where celebrated British distance coach Alan Storey, who has coached then likes of Sir Mo Farah and Chris Thompson, talks about his respect for the athlete who didn’t get the wider recognition he deserved from the British establishment and public. In Greece, the home of the Spartathlon, he was adored for his achievements.
This is why his inclusion in this hall of fame is important, because the pedestrians of the 1800s filled stadiums with their exploits, whereas today we are oddities in the regrowth of trail and ultramarathon as a sport. The UTMB and Western States are becoming mainstream, but if you choose to run in circles for six days to earn your rest on the seventh day not many will understand why.
James Zarei îs still an inspiration to many of the road ultrarunners in the UK, who toil over 100k, 24hrs and tackle historic events like Spartathlon. He might not
have had the speed over shorter distances like his peers of Don Ritchie and Cavin Woodward, but for one week in October 1990 he strived to achieve something
impossible to even the best of the world’s endurance athletes and in Sparta, he was a king.