Donna Clarke’s Greatest Run (Part One)
December 3, 2025
By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (December 2nd 2025)
Her Greatest Run
Donna Clarke was in her mid-20s when she made history – allegedly. She hated training – refused to go, in fact. A little overweight and fond of a drink and some drugs – mainly performance inhibiting ones Donna was about to run into history. She defied the odds – a fantastic cross-country run that eclipsed some of the greatest performances on the track.
A court heard a top Queen’s Counsel insist that she had a maximum of 15 minutes to get from a celebration of a friend’s release from prison, do everything she was accused of and get back to the celebration without a change in general demeanour – all of this would become significant as years later Donna’s remarkable athletic prowess finally won recognition in a most unlikely way.
Kenya, a country overflowing with talented athletes, heard of Donna’s achievement. The Organizing Secretary of Kenya’s Veteran Athletes Association (VAA), Simon Biwott, was intrigued by the evidence (see Donna Clarke’s Greatest Run Part One at https://fittedin.org/fittedinwp/2025/12/03/donna-clarkes-greatest-run-part-one/). Biwott, issued a Certificate of Recognition of her achievement to Donna Clarke.
Records Can’t Lie
The record books had a clear story to tell. Taken at her absolute slowest, despite a fairly steep incline, Donna Clarke had to run at an average pace for more than 7000 metres that was faster than every female world-record holder including the outstanding 800 metres world-record set by Jarmila Kratochvilová, then representing Czechoslovakia, over 42 years ago.
Depending on which garage she chose to get unleaded petrol from in the very early hours of October 11th 1995 Clarke maintained a blistering pace – either 7.93123466667 metres/second (m/s) over 7138.1112 metres or if she chose the other garage, then her pace was 8.82531577778 metres/second over a distance of 7942.7842 metres. On its own this was a remarkable achievement even for a seasoned and extremely gifted athlete, but for Clarke to do this on her first ever run without any training or equipment was mind-boggling.
To put it in some female athletics context, it was run at a faster pace than the world records for the Marathon (Tigst Assefa – 5.33236421079 m/s), Half Marathon (Letesenbet Gidey – 5.59318504772 m/s), 10000 metres (Letesenbet Gidey – 5.74372641482 m/s), 5000 metres (Gudaf Tsegay – 5.95089322907 m/s), 3000 metres (Junxia Wang – 6.17144267758 m/s), 2000 metres (Francine Niyonsaba – 6.21967906456 m/s), the mile (Faith Kipyegon – 6.49872395413 m/s), 1500 metres (Faith Kipyegon – 6.54707345816 m/s), 1000 metres (Svetlana Masterkova – 6.71231037723 m/s), and 800 metres (Jarmila Kratochvilová – 7.06214689266 m/s).
Biwott was astonished – he had never heard of the great Donna Clarke before and whichever distance she had run on that cold October night in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales all those years ago, it was faster than every female world-record up to Kratochvilová’s.[1]
Biwott noticed something else too. If Clarke had chosen Snow’s Garage (now Applegreen) then her pace of 8.82531577778 m/s beat the remarkable run of the then East German, Marita Koch when she set the 400 metres world record over 40 years ago as well. Koch’s pace was 8.40336134454 m/s.[2]
[1] The Ethiopian long-distance runner, Assefa set her record in the London Marathon on September 24th 2023 with a time of 2 hours 11 minutes and 53 seconds. On October 24th 2021 Gidey set her Half Marathonrecordof 1 hour 2 minutes and 52 seconds in Valencia. On June 8th 2021 Gidey ran the 10000 metres in a time of 29 minutes 1.03 seconds at the Ethiopian Olympic Trials. On September 17th 2023 Tsgeay ran the 5000 metres in a world-record time of 14 minutes 00.21 seconds in Eugene. Gidey and Tsegay (also Ethiopian) lost the following world records to Kenyan Beatrice Chebet in Eugene, Orgegon. On May 25th 2024 Chebet broke Gidey’s 10000 metres record in Eugene with a time of 28 minutes 54.14 seconds, a pace of 5.76654710692 m/s. She set a time of 13 minutes 58.06 seconds which is a pace of 5.96615994082 m/s in the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene on July 5th 2025 to break Tsegay’s record as well – both of these happened after Biwott became aware of Clarke’s assault of the record books.
The controversial Chinese athlete Junxia Wang set her 3000 metres record of 8 minutes 06.11 seconds in China on September 13th 1993. The Burundian athlete Niyonsaba smashed the Republic of Ireland’s Sonia O’Sullivan’s 2000 metres record in Zagreb on September 14th 2021 with a time of 5 minutes 21.56 seconds – she is controversial as she has hyperandrogenism.
Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon holds two world records. On July 21st 2023 she ran the mile in 4 minutes 7.64 seconds in Monaco, having ran the 1500 metres in a time of 3 minutes 49.11 seconds on June 2nd 2023 in Florence – a record she beat in Paris on July 7th 2024 with a time of 3 minutes 49.04 seconds. Her average pace in the 1500 metres is now 6.54907439749 m/s.
On August 23rd 1996, Masterkova – Russia, which she ran for, was then part of the Commonwealth of Independent States which had replaced the defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – ran the 1000 metres in a time of 2 minutes 28.98 seconds in Brussels. The previous world record holder, Mozambique’s Maria Mutola, finished second to her. Kratochvilová set her still standing 800 metres record in Munich’s Olympic Stadium on July 26th 1983 with a time on 1 minute 53.28 seconds.
[2] Koch set her 400 metres record in a time of 47.60 seconds in Canberra, Australia on October 6th 1985. In an outstanding career she set 16 outdoor world records – the 400 metres record still stands. After the collapse of East Germany, examination of the files of the secret police (Stasi) and other records revealed a systematic doping programme. Koch never tested positive, but that would not have been surprising if she had been part of the doping programme, given the way the East German doping programme was run. Koch insists that she never took performance enhancing drugs and the World Anti-Doping Association’s statute of limitations of ten years expired decades ago in her case, so her performances and records still stand.
