WHEN last we wrote of Ian Bloomfield, the Great Britain international athlete was hoping to complete his 60th marathon to mark his 60th birthday. It was 2012.

Now he nears his 65th, eyes more records, confident that this one really can run and run. “It’s not the training that’s hard, it’s when you can’t train,” he insists.

Initially it’s a passing encounter: he’s bounding through a Saturday morning 16-miler on the remote back roads of Weardale, we’re in the car. The subsequent email observes “a rate of knots.”

“You must have caught me with the wind behind me,” Ian replies.

He was a Sunderland lad, played Wearside League football, ran his first marathon in 1981, shifted like so many more Sunderland folk from the sea end of the river towards its source and is now settled in Stanhope.

A long-standing calf injury eventually ruled out the 60/60 attempt, resurfaced when he finished a World Masters marathon in Australia in a personal worst 3 hours 25 minutes.

“I knew after four miles that I’d made a mistake but there were still 22 to go,” he recalls. “I suffered a lot but it was a team event and they were relying on me to finish. It did me good, I learned mental resilience that day.”

Now he feels he’s running into top form again, his November birthday opening up new Over-65 record possibilities including two hours 16 minutes for 20 miles and two hours 51 for the marathon. “I’m hopeful that both are within my capabilities,” he says.

For three years he also held the UK Over 60s marathon record, two minutes inside the old two hours 46 minutes record until someone discovered that the Manchester course had been 350 metres short.

“It doesn’t take me two minutes to run 350 metres. It was a bit disappointing,” says Ian (which may be a bit of an understatement.)

He works for Durham County Council, covers eight miles in his lunch break, retires next April. “After that,” says the marathon man, “I hope to be able to do some proper training.”

AGHAST from afar, former Gateshead goalie George Alberts emails from his home in Thailand about next season’s National League fixture list. Not what you’d call a Heed start, they’re at Leyton Orient on a Tuesday evening in October (“bloody daft”) and at Torquay two days before Christmas (“even dafter”.) The consolation, George admits, is that the first league encounters since 1960 with Hartlepool United will be on December 26 and January 1.

REFERENCE last week to Stockton lad Oshor Williams, now assistant director of education at the Professional Footballers’ Association, prompts separate notes from two of his former teachers at St Mary’s RC Grammar School in Darlington.

Arthur Wheeler recalls an “outstanding” player at the same time as Harry Dunn, who managed Whitby Town’s victorious FA Vase team in 1997 and is now Darlington’s chief scout – and that in their annual match, boys beat staff.

David Moyes taught the lad Spanish, but by way of what might be supposed a further learning curve, young Williams played for the “staff” team in the Darlington Sunday Morning League and was named man of the match. David supposes it a misnomer – “he was only 15 at the time.”

THE indomitable Ian Larnach’s golf day at Bishop Auckland last Friday went tremendously, the former Darlington player hopeful of topping £3,000 for his cancer charity.

“I’m really glad you could be here,” said Charlie Morrison – father of the West Bromwich and Scotland player – whose team won the shotgun (or whatever it is that golfers call it.)

“Not half as glad as I am,” said Ian.

Former miner and Newcastle United star Alan Shoulder, one of many ex-professionals in support, recalled – the day before Durham Big Meeting – the time that he’d been drawn from the hat to help carry South Hetton banner into the city.

It was a 6 30am start. “It was a great honour but unfortunately I’d had one or two pints the night before and slept in. It’s one of the biggest regrets of my life,” he said.

Alan’s never been back to the Gala. “I didn’t dare show my face,” he said.

LITERALLY in passing, the Teesdale hamlet of Scargill earned a mention a couple of weeks back, prompting the recollection that former NUM leader Arthur Scargill had himself once visited in search of family history.

David Walsh further recalls that the Southern Railway had a class of heavy duty steam engines known as King Arthurs. “Some had to be converted to oil firing during a miners’ strike….”

...AND finally, last week’s column sought the identity of the only cricketer to have topped 10,000 runs for two different counties – the same man, we said, who was the oldest since the war to score a test century at Lord’s. It was Riding Mill lad Tom Graveney – 40 when he hit 151 against India in 1967.

Readers are today invited to name the last English off-spinner before Moeen Ali last weekend to take ten or more wickets in a test match at Lord’s.

The column turns up again next week.