To celebrate running his 50 th half marathon, Cheltenham father David Clarke (65) will be running the Cheltenham Half Marathon with three of his adult children and wife Danielle this weekend.
Keen to cross the line with his very own ‘Dave Clarke 5’, David, who is a member of Cheltenham Running Club, asked his adult children, who live and work all over the UK, to come home for the weekend and compete in this special event with him.
The family have had personalised club running vests made especially for the 13 mile run.
Eldest daughter and mum of four herself, Abbie (39), will be travelling down from Hull, where she works as a consultant anaesthetist at Hull Royal Infirmary; it will be Abbie’s very first half marathon.
Eldest son Chris (38), will be travelling the 476 kms from Kirkcaldy in Scotland to take part in this special family day. He is a regular runner, taking part in numerous full and even ultra-marathons.
Baby of the family, 35yr old Jonny, lives and works in London teaching English to foreign students. Although he swims and keeps fit, this will be his first ever half marathon.
David’s wife Danielle (59), who will also be joining the team over the line, previously ran the Cheltenham half in 2013 but hasn’t run since. She has been training with Cheltenham Running Club to prepare for this momentous family occasion.
To top it all, six of his grandchildren will be participating in the Community Mile. Commenting on this far from ‘half’ hearted family effort David said, ‘There are two things that are very important to me in life, my family and my running, what better way to celebrate this milestone of completing my 50th half marathon, than by running it with my wife and
children?
Danielle and I both train with Cheltenham Running Club and we’d like to thank Conor for getting us ready for the event; we’re lucky to have such a fun and proactive running group in town that has changed the lives of so many people locally, introducing them to the addictive sport that is running.’
Talking about strategy for the day David said, ‘The only strategy really is to finish feeling ‘Glad all Over’ rather than in ‘Bits and Pieces’! Living so far apart from each other as we do, we don’t often get together, so we’ll probably spend a lot of the time chatting as we go. The plan is to run the whole race together, sticking at the pace of the slowest person.
We’ll complete this race together, as one big happy family and in turn make this father and husband extremely proud of his very own Dave Clarke 5.’