Amateur Albrighton runner crosses the finishing line on his 400th marathon

Nick Cockburn, who is 667th on the world list for most races completed, began his marathon running a decade ago as he wanted to lose weight.

On Saturday, he crossed the finish line of his 400th 26-mile event, the ‘Piece of Cake’ trail run in Long Mynd.

The marathon was a last minute change for Nick who had planned to run the Milton Keynes marathon but it was rained off.

Nick, who took just over six hours to finish the Long Mynd trail, received a special badge to mark the occasion from the 100 Marathon Club and was also joined on the 26.2 miles by several friends who he had run with over the last decade.

He said: “I never really set myself a target when I first decided to start running in 2012 - it was more a case of wanting to get fit again and lose weight, as an injury in 2006 had stopped me from playing football.

“Milton Keynes is the marathon I’ve done the most (131 times), so it seemed fitting to make this my 400th one, but the good old English weather had different ideas.

“Thankfully my good friend Denzil Martin had a race taking place on the Long Mynd, so I switched to that one.

"A lot of my usual running partners made the decision to travel to Shropshire, - we had a great chat on the way round, reminiscing about all the challenges we’ve taken on.

“It’s that running community spirit I really love. Everyone gets on and supports each other around the different courses.

“Some people love to go to the pub at weekend. I do that too but prefer to run 26.2 miles first. It’s a great way of seeing different parts of the UK and the rest of the world, some places where I’d never dream of going on holiday.”

Nick, who has raised more than £10,000 for Vasculitis UK and a host of cancer charities, once completed ten marathons in just nine days.

He has also finished the ‘Quadzilla’ six times (four marathons in four days), London to Brighton (60 miles) and the 100-mile Thames Path race.

Nick added: “I’m now being asked to pace marathons and have already done Manchester, Rome and Windermere, with a trip to Venice coming up in October.

“It’s a big honour to help other runners achieve a specific time…the big challenge is you must keep at a consistent pace, and you must get them across the line 30 seconds before or 30 seconds after the allocated time," he said. “I haven’t got a set number of marathons I want to run in mind. As long as I still enjoy doing them and my body is still in one piece, I’ll just keep going. 500 is the next big milestone and, admittedly, I may go somewhere more exotic for that one!”