ACCRINGTON-BORN running legend Ron Hill will have a spring in his step when he does a lap of Accrington Stanley a week tomorrow.
The 69-year-old, who runs for Clayton-le-Moor Harriers, will celebrate hitting 150,000 miles since he started logging them with a run around the pitch at the start of Stanley’s home clash with Shrewsbury.
The three-times Olympian ran around Old Trafford when he notched 100,000 miles but he asked to run around Accrington for this landmark, having watched Stanley as a young boy.
It is a tremendous achievement for the athlete who has run every day since 1964 and began making a note of his daily miles then.
Even when he had a car accident and broke his sternum in a head on crash, he managed to run a mile the next day to keep his record going.
And helping him chalk up his miles is his other aim - to race in 100 different countries by the time he is 70.
By October this year, he was closing in on the accolade having totted up 95 countries and he recently made it 98 after racing in Montenegro, Uruguay and Argentina.
"I ran in 50 countries by the time I was 50, 60 by the time I was 60 but I have been able to give more time to it now," said Hill, who won a Commonwealth Games gold medal after winning the Edinburgh Marathon in 1970 in two hours nine minutes and 48 seconds.
Ron, a former Springhill Primary School and Accrington Grammar School pupil who now lives in Hyde, also broke the Boston marathon record with two hours 10 minutes.
He was Britain’s greatest distance runner in the 1960s.
* RON is inviting local runners to run three miles with him first, starting at 2.10pm from the Crown Pub near Stanley’s ground.
He is expected to arrive back at the ground at around 2.50pm for his lap of honour and runners will form a guard of honour to celebrate his achievement.
