Gina Little - Marathon magic

IN LIFE, we all meet or hear of some amazing feats and more so, people who inspire us.  Historically for me, I’d certainly put Nelson Mandela, the late Mother Theresa and even Bob Geldof into the list of people who have attempted to make the world a better place.  Last week, I was on work placement for Runner’s World and undertook the tricky task of doing a telephone interview (one of my biggest fears!)  I spoke to an inspiring woman, who has plenty of Marathon Magic.

INCREDIBLE: Gina Little has a load of Marathon Magic

     Gina Little might be in her sixties, but her passion to run is inspirational.  Only recently, she just took part in her 400^th marathon; an off-road trail marathon in Hertfordshire.  When I spoke to her, she had just competed in her 402^nd marathon, a staggering and amazing achievement!

    I asked Gina what made her start running in the first place; “The London Marathon goes above the top of my home, so I went and watched the second marathon.  I then did the next marathon in 1983.  I enjoyed it, but thought it was going to be a one-off.”

     401 marathons later and not only is Gina very experienced at this distance, but she still loves the competition and certainly has caught the marathon bug.  In fact, she has competed in 41 marathons in each of the last two calendar years (2009 and 2010).  Admittedly, she said that the marathon suits her body and style of running and finds shorter distances such as 5K and 10K tough to work out, but even so, it takes a lot of fitness and stamina to keep going without even thinking of stopping.  Gina joined a special 100 marathon club in September 1999 and from then, it all exploded.  The following year, she had to cope with the tragic death of her husband, yet the running bug kept appealing to her.      

     Part of her local Plumstead Runners club, Gina told me what keeps her driving to succeed in the marathon distance; “The other people you meet in marathons are great.  I still enjoy the challenges thrown at me.  In fact, I am still beating marathon runners today who are 20 years younger and that’s exciting.”

     Gina’s PB (Personal Best) for a marathon is 3hrs 26mins, achieved in of all places, London in 1993.  Fifteen years later she took part in six marathons in six days in six separate counties of Northern Ireland.  To keep the amazing statistics going, Gina has competed in 21 Berlin marathons and has also competed in Hong Kong, New York, Los Angeles, Hawaii and last year, Tokyo, which was one of the destinations she’d been determined to compete in.  For the 400^th marathon, she had a cake of her picture to celebrate the remarkable achievement and loads of good luck and congratulations cards from friends, colleagues and well-wishers.

     I asked Gina about today’s training regimes and whether she fits into the crowd of sticking to a demanding physical routine.  “I don’t have a race plan; I simply go and run how I feel.  I prefer to run on my own and do my own thing.  At the end of the day, you can’t plan when you do a PB, it just happens and I’m a prime example of that (the London PB 1993), it just happens.  I firmly don’t agree with all these high-profile training regimes.”

     Gina has absolutely no plans to finish either.  She is still hoping to go to New Zealand and attempt the Auckland marathon and with her desire to run abroad, it’s hard not to see why.  This year alone, she has already run in Cyprus, Spain and Switzerland and trains hard for a marathon nearly every week.  In fact, her next race is this weekend in Faversham, with further events in Cambridge, Ireland and Yorkshire around the corner.  Gina is already booked up for the rest of the year and upto April 2012 and will also be marshalling at next summer’s London Olympics.

     Gina Little is an amazing woman and I had real pleasure in hearing her story, as she said to me; “I just want to carry on doing what I want to do for as long as possible.”  She is an inspirational character if there ever was one.  

£3million fine for Network Rail

NETWORK RAIL has been fined £3million and been forced to pay legal costs of £150,000 following the Potters Bar rail disaster.

AVOIDABLE: Seven died after the tragic crash in May 2002

     Seven people, six passengers and one individual walking along the platform were killed when a lunchtime service from London to Kings Lynn crashed into the Potters Bar station in Hertfordshire.  The decision to fine Network Rail, taken on Friday at St. Albans Crown Court, ends the fight for justice for the families, who have waited nine years to gain some form of justice.

     At the hearing, Judge Andrew Bright described the accident as ‘catastrophic’ and the problems with faulty points at Potters Bar ‘could and should have been spotted sooner,’ before the tragic accident occurred on May 10, 2002.  Network Rail, who deal with the public railway system nowadays, have accepted the fine and apologised again to those who lost relatives and friends in the crash.

    Railtrack, which ran the railways at the time of the Potters Bar rail disaster were seen by many to be responsible for the accident.  The judge said that the running of the railways at the time, which had seen accident at Southall, Paddington and Hatfield in quick succession before Potters Bars that Railtrack’s procedures were ‘seriously inadequate.’  Also held accountable was maintenance company Jarvis.  Jarvis, now in administration, were responsible for the faulty point lines at Potters Bar.  In March, the Office of Rail Regulation, which bought about this prosecution against Network Rail decide to drop charges against Jarvis, as they felt it was out of the public interest.

     After Friday’s hearing, Ian Prosser, director of rail safety for the ORR made a statement to reporters.  He said; “Safety on Britain’s railways has improved significantly over the last nine years and statistics show we have on of the safest railways in Europe.  However, there can be no room for complacency and the safety culture of the rail industry can be significantly strengthened.”

     The recklessness of the Railtrack years seems to be a thing of the past.  Since Potters Bar, Network Rail, which is a private limited company, but gets most of its funds through public spending have taken great strides in improving the railway system.  That is something the families affected by Potters Bar have been happy to accept.  Unfortunately, it came at the cost of seven people’s innocent lives, in a tragedy as proven by Friday’s verdict, as an avoidable accident.