Running Shoes.

The running boom of the early 80s arose from mass participation Marathons (although New Zealanders will point to Auckland’s now 70,000 strong Round the Bays race in 1972 as being the seminal Fun Run), writes Dave Eveleigh.

The very real physical discomfort of running 26 mile means that the Half Marathon is now a more realistic road race of choice for the enthusiastic amateur.

Later, races like the Seaton based ‘Grizzly’ were successfully promoted using the term “multi-terrain”.

In truth this was cross-country re-branded for the post-modern runner, but track racing has never really taken off, except as a convenient venue for a finish point.

While Exmouth club-mates were twixt Exe and Axe or filling an unforgiving three hours with 26 plus miles, Jamie Palmer was on the track at Plymouth.

It will be races there that will have us out of our armchairs screaming come the Olympics and, Jamie will know just what it feels like, even if he is a couple of laps behind a virtual Mo Farrah.

Taking the pace up after 1,000 metres of an early season 3,000 metres race (seven and a half laps of the 400 metre circuit), Jamie also went on to win the race, in 9:44. So, runners out there while we wait for its full re-brand why not beat the rush and give track racing a go!