A BIT of a stop-start 2017 for Sharon Gayter, ultra runner extraordinary, not least because of a gall bladder operation in June.

Road to recovery, the Guisborough-based athlete plans three world record attempts in 2018 – and no matter that two of them will be on a treadmill.

The first, beginning next Monday at the Olympia Building at Teesside University, hopes to beat 45 hours for ten marathons in as many days, a fund raiser for New Age Uganda.

The second, from April 3, aims to cover 1,000,000 metres on a treadmill and to raise money for the third – an August attempt to beat 12 days for John o’ Groats to Land’s End, the reverse of her record shattering effort in 2006.

Sharon may still talk about that one. The column certainly does, and we merely overtook her in a taxi a couple of miles from the far north finish.

Gall stone problems had been diagnosed last February. “Sometimes the pain crippled me,” she says.

Still she ran – and ran – including a 250km event across Hawaii at altitudes up to 8,000ft and carrying full kit, food and sleeping bag. She finished second lady.

In July she was first lady in a “Scorcher” event, seven marathons in seven days, a feat duly reported to the consultant at her six-week check-up.

The usual recovery period is three months. “I think,” said the doc, “that I can class the operation as a success.”

Golden Gayter will be 55 this year.

BILL Gayter, the best support party a woman ever had, sets slightly more modest goals – but has just completed his 200th Parkrun on the new hips he had 12 years ago. “They’re still working splendidly,” he reports.

FEW may have enjoyed a happier holiday than 88-year-old Eli Ord, home alone on Christmas Eve when his son Ralph flew in unannounced from Australia.

“For a few moments he was speechless. Mind, he hardly stopped talking after that,” reports Ralph.

Eli, who lives in Langley Park, near Durham, was a long-familiar local leagues cricketer and perhaps the only one twice to have bagged all ten.

Ralph managed Eastgate leisure centre, top end of Weardale, before spreading his wings into global event management. He’s now a senior figure at the upcoming Commonwealth Games on the Australian Gold Coast and, immediately thereafter, flies off to help the Russians with the World Cup.

Amid it all, he still runs a coffee farm and brought home a few aromatic packets by way of belated Christmas presents. “I never touch the stuff. I remain an English breakfast tea man,” he insists.

We caught up at the Boxing Day match between West Auckland and Shildon, a sort of reverse bushtucker trial – “so cold I can’t stop shuddering,” said Ralph. By the time he acclimatised, it was time to fly back.

BACK in the 1990s, the column enjoyed considerable sport at the expense of Yorkshire cricketer Mark Robinson, all-time leader of the duck board.

He’d signed from Northamptonshire, where his 12 successive noughts – seven of them not out – was a world record and where, in 1990, he’d amassed three in 16 first class innings.

Though a competent bowler, at Yorkshire he proved a no-better batter. Retired Durham scorer Brian Hunt tells of a match at Durham Racecourse in which Yorkshire, dramatically collapsing, sent out a search party for the ultimate tail end Charlie.

Found shopping in the city centre, he returned to add another nought to his discomfort.

The man they called Smokey bagged 584 first class wickets at 30.49, but despite 112 not outs, averaged just 4.01 in 259 innings, highest score (by some way) 27.

He now coaches England’s women’s team, World Cup winners last summer. In the New Year honours list, Mark Robinson was appointed OBE for services to cricket.

A MAN for the small print, Martin Birtle spots among the television sub-titles that Mason Crane was described as “the handsome spin bowler.” It’s thought that they meant the Hampshire spin bowler. It would have been just about the only handsome thing to happen all tour, says Martin.

STILL down under, Crook lad Robbie Young – formerly in Shildon – has arrived in Sydney for the fifth test. It’ll be his 100th test, including every Australian ground, all those in England and many others worldwide. “For my sins,” he adds, “I also support Spurs.”

….AND finally, the only members of the same family to have won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award (Backtrack, December 21) are Princess Anne (as then she was) and her daughter, Zara Phillips. Before yet it was light, Evelyn Thompson in Crook was first with the answer.

Terry Simpson’s suggestion of Graham and Damon Hill was a nice try but a false start. Don Clarke had similarly to be disqualified for proposing Robin Cousins. “It’s Christmas,” he pleaded.

Former Durham County cricketer Henry McLaren simply rang to point out a local connection in the Sports Personality awards: Dani Hazell, Bearpark lass, picked up the team awards on behalf of England’s women cricketers.

Still keeping it in the family, Don Clarke invites readers to nominate the brothers to have won Wisden Cricketer of the Year nominations.

Fraternally as always, the column returns next week.