Brendan Foster on the Great North Run and the importance of ANY type of daily exercise

Virgin Radio

28 Jun 2021, 12:44

The former long-distance runner, athletics commentator and Great North Run organiser joined the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky to talk about 40 years of the world’s biggest and best half marathon and the importance of getting your heart going to help mental and physical health.

Sir Brendan told Chris: “We reassembled for the 40th birthday and I selected 40 people to join us, socially distanced, running together across the finish line, including myself, to finish the 13.1 mile challenge, which has been taking place over the weekend."

On the birth of the Great North Run he said: “The year before I was training in New Zealand for the Commonwealth for the Olympic Games and we ran a fun run in New Zealand in Auckland and about 10,000 people ran.

"We’d never seen anything like that so I decided when I retired after the Olympics in 1980 then we would try and do something ourselves…

“We organised the event and on our first day we had 12,000 runners. It was the biggest event that ever happened in this country and it’s been the biggest ever since.

“I decided to start in the city centre in Newcastle and finish on the seafront in South Shields which is where we are today. 

“The Great North Run will happen. We'll be announcing details and it’s scheduled to happen on the 12th September, so our plan is to go ahead with it. 

“We're working hard here and we've got big plans. This year is going to be called the Great North Run Thank you. The starters this year, instead of being celebrities, will be NHS workers and we're going to celebrate them so it's a big year for everybody."

On keeping morale and mental health in check with exercise, he shared: “The incredible thing was in the heights of despair last year when Boris Johnson came on the TV to tell us that we had to stay at home and socially distance, the one thing he did say which was the most significant of all was that daily exercise - running, walking, cycling - should be part of a healthy lifestyle.

"I think that people have listened to that and have realised that one of the things about COVID is that it tackles the inequality of health and people need to be healthier.

"I think the idea of exercising daily is something which we should pick up on...

“If you've had a stressful day at work and even more so when you’ve got the COVID issues to worry about… a relaxing couple of hours or an hour even to run, walk or even shuffle, I think that's the mission.

"If we can get more people out there breathing and pushing their heart rates up and shuffling, running, walking, cycling, then we might have achieved something in our lives.”  

For more info, check out www.greatrun.org/