Steve Edwards
He’s set several world records, ran 858 official marathons in an average finish time of just over 3hrs 18mins, he is “The Man Inside The Machine” according to his recently published autobiography.
Steve has kindly agreed to give pukiesrunning an interview, so let's get straight to it.
He’s set several world records, run 876 official marathons in an average finish time of just over 3hrs 18min, he is ‘The Man Inside the Machine,’ according to the title of his recently published autobiography. Coventry-born Steve Edwards works in IT during the week, but at the weekend morphs into ‘The Godfather of Marathon Running,’, and his mission is to complete 1,000 marathons. Steve, welcome to Pukiesrunning.
Steve and I both grew up streets apart in Coventry, went to the same school, played football and cricket over the park, though 2 years older than me he was always a nightmare to tackle, if you could catch him that is.
I moved away and lost touch with everyone in Coventry but while watching Brighton marathon highlights in 2015, Steve popped up in an interview, I got in touch and it's stayed that way ever since. Steve is the reason that I am going for 100 marathons and it was Steve who suggested I try a 10 in 10.
How did it all begin for you?
"I ran my first marathon aged 18, it was in fact my first-ever race, Coventry was holding its first marathon and I had a bet with some mates that I could do it. I didn’t have a clue how to prepare for it, I hadn’t run any sort of distance since doing cross country at school. Hence I did everything wrong but somehow managed to finish in 3:38 and was over the moon. However the next day I could hardly walk and had to come down the stairs backwards. My legs felt like gate posts and it was nearly a week before I could walk properly again. I vowed never again.”
Obviously you carried on, what happened next?
"I continued running as I realised it was a great way to keep fit and I’d discovered a sport that gave me a new found self confidence, I also entered various other distance events over the next few years. However it always came back to the marathon, that was the event that interested me the most. As I did more 26.2-milers and my times came down I wondered if I could run marathons on a more frequent basis, multi marathons. In 1988 I set my first big goal, to run 12 marathons in 12 months to raise money for Great Ormand Street hospital. During one of those marathons I got chatting to somebody called Richard Bird from a little known group of runners who called themselves the 100 marathon club, their aim to aspire to run 100 marathons in their lifetime. I ended up running 20 marathons that year and two years later at St Albans in Dec 1990 achieved my first world record by becoming the youngest person to run 100 official marathons, I was 28. From there, it was all about setting myself more goals” “Richard Bird went on to complete 71 official marathons in a year, a new world record, that was to be my next goal. In 1991/92, I ran 87 in a year to break that record and a little while after set a 3rd world record by becoming the youngest person to run 200 official marathons”
And then you just carried on ?
‘In 1988, I also remember reading an entry in the Guinness Book about an American Canadian gentleman who’d ran 500 marathons averaging just over 3hr 30min. That really caught my imagination, not just the amount of marathons but the average finish time really got me thinking. Was it be possible to run 500 marathons averaging under 3hrs 30min?, in fact was it be possible to run that many all under 3hrs 30min? It took me 24 years to do it, but in 2012, my 50th birthday year, I managed to achieve my goal, 500 official sub 3:30 marathons and an average finish time of 3hrs 12min, another world record. Back in the day, many people said it would be impossible, that my knees would go, but thankfully I managed to get there and my body didn’t actually feel too bad, so it seemed logical to push on and see how much further I could raise the bar.”
What other things have you achieved and are proud of?
"Setting the first ever world record for the fastest 10 marathons in 10 consecutive days which I did in 2008 at the Brathay event around Lake Windermere. It has since been bettered many times over but I always look back at this as a kind of Roger Bannister moment where somebody had to do it before others realised it could be done. I did in fact go back the following year and bettered my time to just over 33 hours which is still a Vet 45 record to this day.”
Other significant achievements Steve has accomplished are
Sep 2013 - 600 official marathon races in the fastest average finish time - 3hrs 13min.
Mar 2014 - Fastest 7 marathons in 7 consecutive days in V50 category - 23hrs 34min (3:22 average) Oct 2015 - 700 official marathon races in the fastest average finish time - 3hrs 15min
Mar 2015 - First person in the world to run 600 sub 3:30 official marathon races.
Jun 2015 - First Brit to run 300 sub 3:15 official marathon races.
Apr 2017 - First person in the world to run 700 sub 3:30 official marathon races.
Oct 2017 - 800 official marathon races in the fastest average finish time – 3hrs 17min
Sep 2018 – First person in the world to run 500 sub 3:20 official marathon races.
He has 68 marathon race wins to date, the second most by any British athlete, has run 100 official marathon races run abroad in 34 different countries and 20 capital cities. He’s run marathons in over 60 UK counties, including Scilly Isles and Outer Hebrides.
On average he’s run a competitive marathon race every 13 days for 31 years and so far has no DNFs! Achieving goals this big doesn’t come easily for Steve and he’s made many sacrifices along the way. “With working full time and training & racing on a regular basis we don’t get to see our family as much as we’d like. We have a grown-up son, three grandchildren and elderly parents and it’s always a struggle to juggle weekend visits when there’s also a marathon to be run. But my wife Teresa is very good, she comes with me to most races and is extremely supportive, I couldn’t have achieved all that I have without Teresa’s support.”
Running wise, what's changed as you’re nearing a 1000 marathons?
“As I’ve got older I feel that that I’m having to work ever harder in training & racing to achieve the finish times that I need to stay on target. At the moment I’m still hitting the 3:20’s and low 3:30’s but I’m having to train a lot smarter these days to try and stay injury free. The other thing is that some of the younger runners on the circuit who I used to beat are now beating me, that’s been hard to accept but I guess I’ve become a bit of a target. It may sound strange but I feel more nervous now before a race, probably because everyone just expects me to do well all the time when the truth is there is so much than can go wrong during a marathon, you can’t take anything for granted.”
How do you keep going?
“Physically I do lots of core strength and conditioning to keep my body strong and in turn this helps to keep me running as efficiently as possible. I know from experience that you can’t simply run to keep match fit and you also have to be careful not to over train. These days I know that when my body starts to creak that it’s time to back off. When I was younger I’d keep going, even if that meant running through injury, but I couldn’t get away with that now. Mentally I don’t look too far ahead either with each race or the overall target, I take it a mile at a time and race at a time. During a race I always give 100% as I never want to look back with any regrets that I could have gone quicker. I also say to myself that each race could be my last, which is true, and if it was I’d want to know that I’d given it my best. Ultimately I tell myself that each time I can post a successful performance, I’m extending the records ever higher which will ultimately make them more difficult for somebody to break in the future.”
Talking of injuries, tell us some of the ones you've had and how is the body holding up now?
“I think I’ve been very lucky over the years with not getting too many injuries, my worst was a stress fracture in my ankle in 2010 which put me out of action for 4 months but I was able to cross train to maintain a lot of fitness so made a successful return, I was lucky. These days I’m managing niggles on a day to day basis but I always stretch after every run, use a massage roller daily, have a regular sports massage and make sure my diet is good. Doing all these things plus doing the core strength work I’m hoping will keep me going.”
You've aimed your sights high over the years, any advice for others looking to achieve major goals?
“When I was first starting out, if I’d looked years and years ahead I could never have imagined all that I’ve achieved. I now look back and wonder where the time has gone. You realise that life passes by relatively quickly and you only get so many opportunities to achieve things, so you need to grab them when you can. I’m also very honest with myself, if I’ve messed up it’s for a reason. Once in the New Forest I just wore a vest on a cold, wet and windy day and I ended up with hypothermia. It was about 15 miles in when I realised I was in trouble. I struggled to the end, just inside 3:30, but I felt a right idiot. I gave myself a good telling off and learned a valuable lesson, never stop learning. Patience is also important, to achieve something big takes time, perhaps many years of effort and hard work, always remember the 4 Ds, Discipline, Dedication, Determination and Desire.”
Presuming you reach the 1000, what happens then, will you carry on?
“That’s a difficult question to answer, I do visualise and hope that I can continue running into old age, I certainly don’t want to stop. I do in fact have a secret goal to run 50 London Marathons, that will take me up to my 80s, having so far run 24 I can only hope.”
Looking back, have you had to overcome adversity along the way?
“A lot of painful memories came flooding back when I wrote my book. I was bullied as a child because I have a deformed left hand, there was no such thing as political correctness in the 1970s! I had to learn to block it out and be mentally strong from a young age. However I think that experience has perhaps helped me as I’ve got older, maybe I wouldn’t be where I am now if I hadn’t been bullied. It helped define the person I am today and maybe that’s why my mental strength is good. I’ve actually been quite amazed at the number of people who have got in touch after reading my book to say they’ve been through a similar experience and have got into running as a result of things that happened in their childhood. You never really know what drives people but to be an inspiration to others is really humbling and it’s certainly something I could never have imagined as a bullied child, inspiring others.”
Why did you write your autobiography?
“For several reasons really, first and foremost to inspire others and show that ordinary everyday people can achieve massive things, not just in sport but in many other areas of life. Also to leave a legacy for my grandchildren which will hopefully help inspire them as they grow up and perhaps get handed down to their own children in time to come. It also serves as an historic record of how things have changed since I was a child growing up in the 1970s and how the running scene has changed since the 1980s when I first started running."
You can order a copy of Steve's book here. The Man Inside the Machine: The Approved Biography of Steve Edwards, One of the World's Most Successful Multi-Marathon Runners.
The Man Inside the Machine: The Approved Biography of Steve Edwards, One of the World's Most Successful Multi-Marathon Runners
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0995454701/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_taa_rJsoDbC2A1CP0
What do you think of the explosion of online running sites, magazines etc?
“I think it’s great that there’s a wealth of information at your fingertips on all things running, there’s nothing you can’t find out about now with the internet. This is a total contrast to when I first started, there was no internet and apart from a few books in the library and a couple of monthly magazines, that was it. However you can feel as though there is too much information at times so it’s important to be selective with what you take on board, not everything applies to everybody and we’re all different so you do need to find out works for you.”
Do you think there are too many events now, presumably when you started they were few and far between?
“If you mean marathons in the UK, then yes there were fewer of these events back in the late 80s, 90s and even early Noughties, but in those days they tended to be traditional road races run on single or double lap courses and you had to do a lot of travelling if you wanted to break multi marathon running records. In contrast, multi lap, multi day and trail marathons seem to have really taken off in recent years whereas the road marathons are very much on the decline. Many years ago I’d run lots more single road marathons and hardly any multi lap or trail courses but now it’s the other way round. I guess logistically it’s just so much easier and cost effective to organise multi lap and off road events given our busy roads and the cost of policing etc. There’s certainly more choice of events now which is good in one way but I have found that it’s having a diluting effect on some of the remaining road marathons who rely on larger entries to break even which can only mean further decline which is a real shame.”
What is the next milestone you hope to reach?
“All being well I’d like to set a new 900 marathons record either towards the end of this year or early next year. I’d also like to extend my sub 3:30s record total to 800 if possible, currently I’m on 771. Training and preparing for each race week in week out does take it’s toll, mentally as well as physically so a lot will obviously depend on how well my body holds up and being able to maintain the desire to keep putting in that workload.”
Do you have a preference for which marathon will be your 1000th?
“To be honest, I’ve not really thought about it as I’ve still got a way to go. If I can get beyond 900, then I will start to give it more thought. The only thing I have decided on is that if it were to happen I’d like it to be in the UK.”
What has been your favourite event ever, if its not a UK one, which UK event also?
“Too many to mention really and all for different reasons, I love all the big city marathons I’ve ever ran i.e. London, New York, Chicago to name but a few. However there’s also been some fantastic low key events I’ve run in some lovely places that I wouldn’t necessarily have visited had it not been for attending the race e.g Isles of Scilly off the coast of Cornwall and the Isles of Harris, Benbecula and Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. There’s many more and I could go on but like I say, there really are too many to mention.”
Can you confirm, you will be at my 100th?
“Will that be Snowdon 2020? If so, I’ll try and be there ”
Thanks for your time Steve, if anyone has any questions they would like me to ask Steve then let me know and if he’s not busy I’ll ask.
