Millie Sampson

Born:
Discipline:
Local Club:
Millie Sampson's Story
To understand the pivotal role Mildred “Millie” Sampson played in the development of women’s distance running in New Zealand, it’s the generous words to Millie by 1992 Olympic marathon bronze medallist Lorraine Moller in her book On The Wings of Mercury “thanks for showing us the way” – which perhaps best explains her significance.
New Zealand’s first ever national women’s cross country champion, Millie, who only started athletics seriously at the age of 27, also competed at two International Cross Country Championships (the forerunner to the World Cross Country Championships) and at the inaugural World Cross Country Championships in 1973.
Yet despite only racing two marathons in her career, it is her accomplishments over the classic distance for which she is best known.
On her marathon debut in Auckland on July 21, 1964 she wiped more than eight minutes from the women’s world best time, recording 3:19:33 – a mark which would remain for the next three years.
Born in Clevedon, the eldest of four siblings in 1933, Millie spent much of her childhood living in the East Auckland suburb of Howick.
From a sporting family – her father, Aubin Bellingham, was a former Auckland half-mile champion – she was exposed to athletics early.
“I remember watching dad run at the big showground in Clevedon and I would run in the sprint races from the age of four,” recalls Millie.
Competing for Howick Athletics Club, Millie was however no world beater. With women and girls at that time restricted to racing the sprints, she recalls: “I was a hopeless sprinter, and everyone used to laugh at me because I finished last.”
Quitting athletics at the age of 16, she switched sports and featured as an Auckland rep in basketball and softball – playing alongside 1952 Olympic long jump champion Yvette Williams and 1974 Commonwealth Games 400m representative Colleen Mills in the former sport.
However, she was to later re-enter the world of athletics by chance. Working in a bicycle tyre making factory in Ellerslie, her manager Bob Cheater was also a local athletics coach.
“I remember one day Bob saying he was coaching a group of young women (one of whom was Heather Matthews who would later go on to win 1978 Commonwealth 3000m silver) and that one day they’ll compete at the Olympics.
“Just joking I said, ‘I could beat the lot of them’.”
Bob walked off but later said ‘why don’t you have a go?’ I thought, I might have a bit of talent for long distance running, I used to run with my school bags every day more than a mile to Howick School and quite enjoyed it, so I said okay.”
Millie, aged 27 and married at the time, was asked to run a time trial over the half-mile distance at Papatoetoe, where Bob coached. It was a nerve-wracking experience and pacing was a concern.
“I thought, if I go too slow he will say you are too damn old but if I go too fast I’m going to conk out,” she recalls. “I got to the final straight and started wheeling my arm around because I had a pinched nerve in my shoulder. He called out, ‘what are you doing?’ but I finished that half-mile in around 2:50.”
Encouraged by her time trial, Bob invited Millie to the training group. Showing a natural aptitude for endurance running, she posted several quicker time trials and in her first race she secured the 1961 Auckland half-mile title – running an Auckland record time of 2:24 at Mt Smart Stadium.
“I think the record at the time was 2:27 and I knew I could do it, because I’d ran a similar time in the time trials.”
Millie was hooked.
“I loved training, I could just run and run and run,” she remarks.
Training each evening following an eight-hour shift at the bike tyre factory, she combined three sessions a week at Papatoetoe track and three endurance runs a week alongside Ivan Keats – the Western Suburbs Club distance runner – who represented New Zealand in the marathon at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games.
“After I was married (in 1959) I moved to Mt Albert and Ivan used to knock at my door every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday for a run. I remember we used to do a 10-mile run where we’d go up to the Bullock Track (a steep hill in Western Springs/Grey Lynn) and run up it eight times.
“Ivan was always amazing at knowing what pace we were running. He would know exactly if we were running six-and-a-half minutes per mile or seven minutes.”
Millie also took out the Auckland mile record, but her natural endurance lent herself to the longer distances. A formidable cross country runner, she claimed top spot in the unofficial national women’s cross country title in 1963-65 before winning the first official New Zealand women’s cross country title in 1966 in New Plymouth.
“It was crazy we had to wait so long, because we competed in ‘63, ‘64, ‘65 at the same venue and on the same day as the men’s (national cross country championships). To finally win it in 1966 was a nice feeling.”
Millie was later to add more sheen to her CV by snaring the 1968 and 1972 senior women’s cross country titles.
Yet the highlight of her career arrived after entering the annual Marathon Club Championship marathon in 1964.
“It was Ivan who talked me into it,” recalls Millie. “He had read that Dale Greig in the UK had run a women’s world best time of 3:27:45 earlier that year and he said, ‘why don’t you give it a go?’. I said okay, and for a week-and-a-half I stepped up to training twice a day.”
However, running her maiden marathon was the last thing on Millie’s mind as she attended the Manurewa AC annual social the night before.
“It didn’t take the race at all seriously,” she recalls blushing with embarrassment. “I was up dancing, having a good time and didn’t get home until one or two in the morning. As I went to bed I thought, oh well, I’m not going to be running the marathon.
“I then hear a bang on the door at 7.40am and it is Ivan saying, ‘where the hell are you, the race starts at 8am?’ I reply ‘I’m not running’ but he said, ‘yes you are, get out of bed’.”
Millie got up, splashed water on face and with only half a cup of tea in her stomach ran down the hill from her home in Mt Albert to the start line – set to take on the marathon despite having never run beyond the 15-mile distance in her life.
Surprisingly, despite the far from recommended build up, Millie says for the most part it was a smooth experience around the five-lap course.
Running alongside Ivan for much of the way, she felt comfortable and in control until she hit a speed bump around the 20-mile mark.
“I suddenly felt starving,” she says. “Ivan’s wife, Jill, asked if I was alright. I said I was hungry and shortly after she hands me a kids’ ice cream and chocolate bar she had bought from the shop.
“Thankfully, that helped revive me and I was on my way again.”
Millie crossed the line in 3:19:33, having obliterated the previous world best time but to little fanfare.
“It was Ivan who told me what I’d done, it didn’t really sink in at the time,” she says. “There was very little media attention. It was almost as if it was nothing. If you look at the women today (when they break the world marathon record) they get so much publicity.”
Millie returned to her job the next day at the bike tyre factory and life continued as normal.
It was to be six years before she next tackled the marathon – doing so to raise a bit of publicity for the Owairaka 50-mile Championships at Lovelock track. Running around the 400m oval she completed the distance in a personal best of 3:13.
Millie made her international debut for New Zealand as skipper of the team attending the 1967 International Cross Country Championships in Barry, Wales. However, unfortunately, she did not even make it to the start line picking up a stress fracture of the foot after finishing fifth at the English Cross Country Championships.
Two years later at the International Cross Country Championships in Scotland a bout of bronchitis badly hampered her efforts, although such was her class she still finished seventh and helped New Zealand to team silver.
At the 1971 edition in San Sebastian, Spain she was badly undercooked following a sickness bug and placed 29th.
Two years later she appeared for New Zealand at the inaugural World Cross Country Championships in Waregem, Belgium. However, not suited to the narrow course and icy conditions she finished down in 44th.
Following this race and struggling with arthritis in her foot, she retired from competitive athletics at the age of 40. Somehow it seemed a timely moment for Millie to step away from the sport.
On that same New Zealand cross country team was Anne Audain, who finished ninth and was at the vanguard of a golden generation of female Kiwi endurance running, which also included Allison Roe and the aforementioned Lorraine Moller – a group Millie had helped inspire.
Millie later dabbled in coaching and for a period served on the Athletics Auckland committee.
Divorced from her first husband, Trevor, after 17 years of marriage she later lived with partner Brian Young for more than a decade until his sudden death from a heart attack.
Since the mid-1980s Millie has worked at a drycleaners in Remuera and today she still works there twice a week at the age of 88.
“It feels like home to me,” she adds.
So reflecting on her athletics career how proud is Millie of her accomplishments?
“I really can’t believe it,” she says. “But looking back, how stupid was I to stay out so late before that marathon? It is nice my name is still in the record books, but I know I could have run so much quicker!”