Roger Robinson

David Bedford was at last recognised in Britain's 2014 New Year's Honours list. In the 1970s, he became one of Britain's greatest ever distance runners, and went on to be the dynamic director of the Virgin London Marathon, making it all round probably the world's greatest running event. I wrote a profile of Dave in Heroes and Sparrows, including the sometimes painful experience of training frequently with him in Christchurch before the 1974 Commonwealth Games. And I paid a more recent tribute when he stepped down from the London Marathon, in "Footsteps," Running Times August 2013 ("Runners. Rebels and Race Directors"), where I revisited memories of seeing him break the world 10,000m record at Crystal Palace in 1973, one of the finest races I've ever witnessed. They should have put him in the House of Lords in my view. He'd stir the place up, as he has everything he has touched. 

Mel Watman, the leading authority on British athletics, and much more, was deservedly honoured in 2013 by induction into the England Athletics Hall of Fame. Formerly editor of Athletics Weekly, Mel is that rare thing, a statistician who can also write well. His books are indispensable - the Encyclopedia of Track and Field Athletics, Official History of the AAA, All-Time Greats of British Athletics, etc. He is always extremely generous in sharing his knowledge with those of us who lack his compendious memory. It's good to see such a valued chronicler of the sport receive recognition.  In running, if Mel doesn't know it, it didn't happen.    

Mel Edwards will meet the Queen on January 24. Her Majesty should brace herself for a stern but inspiring talk about how she should increase the intensity of her interval training. Mel will be awarded an MBE for his services to athletics and to the Myeloma Foundation. A Scottish international, Mel went close to Olympic marathon selection for GB in 1968. Injuries restricted him, though he later became a prodigious fell runner. When afflicted by serious myeloma (bone marrow cancer), he dismissed it as "another injury" and now eight years later focuses on his set of PSCR records (that's Post-Stem-Cell-Replacement) in Countesswells Forest, outside Aberdeen. He also gives time to coaching, and to raising money for myeloma research and treatment. Mel is a long-time close friend, and a ferociously hard trainer. I suffered agonies trying to stay with his 16 x 880 yd sessions at Cambridge in the 1960s. I've tried sometimes to capture his unique enthusiasm in writing, describing him as beginning every run "like a golden retriever that's just been let out of the car." See Roger on Running, December 2012, "Three Wise Men." His son Myles, a journalist and near-international runner, has contributed twice to "Roger on Running." (See "Diary from Iten" and "Diary from Iten 2").  

Tags: David Bedford, Mel Edwards, Mel Watman