Thursday 20 May 2010

Edinburgh Marathon

It is the Edinburgh Marathon tomorrow and I am looking forward to going to watch others suffer for a change but I don't envy the runners, it looks like being very hot. Good luck to the SWAC runners venturing north of the border to run this one, to my cousin Lucy travelling from Norwich for her first ever marathon and to Gerry and Neil. I am taking my camera and so I hope to have some photos to post here tomorrow. A well known face amongst the competitors, at the age of 71, will be Dr Ron Hill taking part 40 years after he won the Commonwealth Marathon gold at the Edinburgh games. Ron hasn't missed a days training since December 1964 and not even a car crash, a bunion operation or having serial killer Harold Shipman as his GP has stopped his daily run. This year is the 40th anniversary of the Edinburgh games where he clocked 2.09.28 to take gold. At the time, the world best was 2.08.34 set in Antwerp by Derek Clayton. However, this performance has been largely discredited as experts believe the Belgian course, measured by car odometer could have been up to half a mile short (should have got Brian Grice to measure it). Clayton never beat Ron in a marathon but Ron's time was never ratified as a world best. When I started running, Ron - inspired by comic book character Alf Tupper was a regular in the Mid Lancs cross countries fixtures running for Clayton le Moors.

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