Dave Finch breaks Buxton AC club marathon record in Valencia

Dave ran the Valencia Marathon in Spain where he broke a 35-year-old record set, by the once president and club legend Norman Taylor.

He finished in a magnificent 2.45.47, coming 54th in his age category and breaking the record by a massive 13 minutes.

I had no idea what the club record was in advance of the race but I was very pleased when I found out that I had broken it, especially since it was such a long standing record,” said Dave.

“I always push myself as hard as I can and plan to do more marathons so who knows what the future holds although I definitely don't feel as sprightly as I used to!

“The start was rather chaotic and not as well organised as other marathons I have participated in. “Consequently I started further down the field than I would liked and got held up a by slower runners for the first couple of miles.

“After that everybody started to spread out and I was able to relax and find my rhythm.

“Most of the remainder of the race went to plan but by the later stages the heat was rising and trying to keep to my target pace was difficult over the last few miles.”

Dave started running regularly in 2014 after moving to London for work and his first marathon was in Tromso, Norway in 2015.

“Most of the marathons I have run are an opportunity to get together with a group of friends and visit somewhere new which has resulted in trips as far afield as Nepal,” he said.

“Another great trip was to the beer lovers marathon in Belgium.

“Valencia was my 19th Marathon, I chose it because it was just one week after my 50th birthday and offered the chance of a bit of winter sun.

“Having sustained a hip injury in 2018, I decided to start my training early in 2022 with a few miles each week and gradually built up from there.

“Running had taken a bit of a back seat in 2021 with lots of family stuff going on so I was rather unfit, relatively speaking, when I started training. My weekly milage peaked in early November when I was running about 60 miles per week.”

He added: “The risk of injury and time to recover both increase as you get older so I tried to ensure that I did some yoga at least once a week along side the running in order to try and avoid any recurrence of the hip issues I'd had previously. Fortunately this plan worked.”

The Valencia Marathon is a popular event with around 40,000 competitors from all over the world.