Joe Worthington

I thought I’d take the opportunity to introduce myself as I start my second stint as one of the club captains and also being the Trail Lead, which was a surprise at the AGM, but I like playing in the mud, so why not!I basically started running as I was too old and broken to play football anymore, and did the Leeds 10k and realised most people around me were older than me, so I figured it must be easy… Oops

After taking part in a few local races and parkruns, I kept seeing these white and blue vests everywhere, so thought I’d look into it… That was back in 2015 and I’m still here despite Simon Newton trying to break me on my first training night by upping the pace until I was gasping for air. I like to keep this game up with new runners every now and again.

I still remember my first winter handicap from Nostell with the staggered starts; there were three of us and none of us knew the route… So I made the stupid choice to chase down the group in front in the first couple of miles who had a 3 minute head start, as they knew the way… Guess I’ve not learnt too much since.

Over the last 10 years I’ve done most types of races from 800m on the track (awful) to 100km ultra marathons (amazing) plus a couple of pram races (brilliant), and ran 100 miles in one go last year (shame the race was 130). I’ve volunteered at events and been part of the pacing teams too.

I’ve had so many great adventures, races and days out with the club, including my Charity challenge around the London Marathon last year, which was so well supported by ARR members, the client b trips to Windermere and Grasmere with paddle boarding to the pub for a few hours, trips to Paris, Valencia, Athens, Barcelona and Malta, along with parkrun trips to Krakow, Rome and Gdansk — definitely need more these!

I’m looking forward to taking the captain’s role on again and trying to encourage and help everyone hit their targets and enjoy their running.

I’ll be at training most of the time, usually being sensible on a Tuesday and splashing in puddles on Thursdays and will be taking part in some of the GP races. Usually I can be found running in the mud or the hills and can’t wait to get started with the Trail Series again… and yes I will be in the Sandals for some of them!