Member Article

‘Piece of Cake’ as Albrighton runner hits the 400 marathon milestone

Whilst most of us were having a relaxing weekend, an amateur Albrighton runner has crossed the finishing line on his 400th marathon - in just over ten years.

Nick Cockburn, who is 667th on the world list for most races completed, had to switch his plans at the last minute to take on the ‘Piece of Cake’ marathon – set across the hilly, picturesque setting of the Long Mynd.

Organised by ‘How Hard Can It Be Events’, the course took in the beautiful Shropshire Hills of one of the National Trust’s most popular natural havens.

He was initially due to run the Caldecotte Lake Marathon in Milton Keynes, but that was postponed late on Friday evening due to the windy conditions expected down there.

Nick, who took just over 6 hours to finish the challenging trail race, received a special badge to mark the occasion from the 100 Marathon Club and was also joined on the 26.2 miles by several friends who he had run with over the last decade.

It has been a whirlwind running career for the Johnson Controls fire suppression engineer, who has taken his trusty trainers to Australia, Barcelona, Rome, Belfast, Dublin and more than 70 different locations in England.

“I never really set myself a target when I first decided to start running in 2012 - it was more a case of wanting to get fit again and lose weight, as an injury in 2006 had stopped me from playing football,” explained Nick, who has been supported on his long journey by his wife Julie Cockburn.

“Milton Keynes is the marathon I’ve done the most (131 times), so it seemed fitting to make this my 400th one, but the good old English weather had different ideas!

“Thankfully my good friend Denzil Martin had a race taking place on the Long Mynd, so I switched to that one. A lot of my usual running partners made the decision to travel to Shropshire, - we had a great chat on the way round, reminiscing about all the challenges we’ve taken on.”

He continued: “It’s that running community spirit I really love. Everyone gets on and supports each other around the different courses.

“Some people love to go to the pub at weekend. I do that too but prefer to run 26.2 miles first. It’s a great way of seeing different parts of the UK and the rest of the world, some places where I’d never dream of going on holiday.”

Nick, who has raised more than £10,000 for Vasculitis UK and a host of cancer charities, doesn’t stop at just running one marathon in 24 hours, completing ten marathons in just nine days once.

He has also finished the ‘Quadzilla’ six times (4 in 4 days), London to Brighton (60 miles) and the 100-mile Thames Path race.

When he’s not pounding the tarmac or crossing muddy fields, he is the Events Listing Manager for the 100 Marathon Club, making sure that members are kept aware of all the races they can enter.

Nick went on to add: “I’m now being asked to pace marathons and have already done Manchester, Rome and Windemere, with a trip to Venice coming up in October.

“It’s a big honour to help other runners achieve a specific time…the big challenge is you must keep at a consistent pace, and you must get them across the line 30 seconds before or 30 seconds after the allocated time!”

He concluded: “I haven’t got a set number of marathons I want to run in mind. As long as I still enjoy doing them and my body is still in one piece, I’ll just keep going. 500 is the next big milestone and, admittedly, I may go somewhere more exotic for that one!”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Russ Cockburn .