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.  

Serbian Hooligans Force Abandonment of Euro Qualifier

HOOLIGANS shamefully returned to the football world, forcing the abandonment of a Euro 2012 qualifier between Italy and Serbia.

The match, between two teams who failed to deliver on their promising potential at the World Cup this summer, was only seven minutes old, when the referee was forced to take the players off the pitch in the stadium at Genoa.  The match was stopped, due to a series of horrendous incident, the worst being flares thrown onto the pitch by Serbian hooligans in the Italian goalmouth, with the target being the Italian goalkeeper Emiliano Viviano.

Viviano had to hide for cover, as one of the flares hit him on the back of the head.  His opposite number, Vladimir Stojkovic of Partizan Belgrade was hit by a flare on the Serbian team bus, when leaving the team hotel.  Amazingly, the flare thrown came from Serbian fans.  Emotionally tormented after the incident, Stojkovic refused to play in the match.  Kick-off was delayed by half an hour, due to crowd trouble involving both sets of supporters.  There had been trouble all day in the Italian city, with scuffles forcing riot police on the streets.  In the carnage, a police car was attacked and set on fire.  Pictures from Italian television showed some supporters leaving the stadium before the match eventually kicked off, already sensing that more trouble was ahead.

17 people have been arrested by Italian police, with 16 supporters being injured in the clashes throughout the day.  The two teams, who are in the same Euro 2012 group as Northern Ireland will not play a rematch, as it is thought that UEFA will award the Italians a 3-0 victory.  UEFA are investigating the trouble, which certainly looked pre-meditated and planned, rather than something in the heat of the moment.  The Serbian Football Association face a heap of trouble, with the president of the Serbian FA immediately saying he was “embarrassed” to be associated with a country on nights like this.  A severe fine, and the possibility of playing the rest of their qualifiers behind closed doors is more than likely, even expulsion from the tournament could be a possibility.  Time after time, UEFA have fallen weak at the final hurdle, when it comes to maximum punishments.  This time, they must make an example out of Serbia, to prevent this sort of trouble happening again. 

Let’s just hope that this was just an ugly day for football….and not a return to the dark old days of the 1980’s.

Snow Returns - Bringing Tragedy & Carnage

Just when everyone thought that the winter wonderland or winter nightmare, whatever way you think was over, more came over the past week, causing carnage in areas of Scotland and Northern Ireland, but also bringing tragedy to a family, her friends and a community.

17-year old Natasha Paton was tragically killed in a coach crash in the early hours of Wednesday morning, when a school trip went ahead, despite severe warnings of hazardous conditions from the police.  Lanark Grammar School decided to proceed with the outing to the Alton Towers theme park in Staffordshire, and have received a barrage of criticism from parents and fellow pupils.  All have expressed their anger that the trip was allowed to set off from the school in the first place, considering the dangerous conditions around.

Having left the school at 5.30am in the morning, approximately twenty minutes into the 500-mile trip to the theme park, the coach plunged into a river, following the atrocious snowstorms that paralysed Southern Scotland.  Thirty-eight pupils, five teachers and the coach driver were taken to hospital, all treated for injuries.  Five remain in hospital, all said to be in a stable condition.  Strathclyde police insisted the conditions were ‘horrendous, and the snow had a major part to play in the crash.’  It is unclear whether the children, including Natasha were wearing the standardised seatbelts at the time of the crash, though that speculation is seen as unnecessary at such a tragic time for everyone involved.

The parents of Natasha Paton are said to be ‘devastated at the loss of our beloved daughter.’  The school opened yesterday, for specialised counselling and a special assembly of remembrance.  Known as a keen follower of Chelsea football club and a fan of social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, Natasha was said by many to be ‘always happy, wearing a smile on her face.’  Her loss will be felt by many, some as a completely unavoidable incident, should the trip have not happened. 

Meanwhile, across the UK, storms have affected many parts of the country and are set to continue throughout the Easter weekend, boosting the number of the 2million holidaymakers battling to getaway for the weekend, for a trip abroad.  Forecasters have described the weekend to be ‘cold, wet and windy.’  Scotland and Northern Ireland have been almost paralysed completely by the snow, with the Environment Agency putting in seventeen flood warnings in place.  72,000 homes have no power, after numerous power lines came down, with some areas suffering 20 inches of snow falling, even more on higher grounds.

What a wonderful start it is to British Summer Time, it is making a real mockery of the calendar, but that doesn’t matter to the friends and family of Natasha Paton, a young girl, whose ambitions have been taken away in such tragic circumstances.  I only can express my sorrow and condolences to the Paton family for this horrific incident, as the winter chill continues to bite us all in the most worst imaginable ways possible.