Bushfield’s Eric Winstone battles through the pain barrier to win his second international vest

This coming Sunday it will be the turn of Phil Martin, who was inspired to take up running by Winstone’s feats.

Unfortunately it was a patched up Winstone who stood on the start line after a persistent upper leg injury failed to clear in time for him to do himself real justice.

Not wanting to pass up the honour of representing his country the Bushfield Jogger chose to ease his way round, and with a mile and a half to go he was on for a time well under 50 minutes.

But a cobbled section of the course disagreed with his injured leg, and he was forced to limp home, finishing as 15th over 70 in a time of 55.12.

With the Great Eastern Run now only two weeks away, evergreen Eric, who has never missed a race, expects to be spending a lot of the next fortnight on the treatment table.

Peterborough & Nene Valley AC’s Phil Martin will be representing England in the Chester Marathon on Sunday and is hoping to go below his 2:24.07 PB.

Martin took up running nine years ago with Winstone his chief source of inspiration.

The pair met in the Windmill pub in Orton Waterville, which is presumably the only Peterborough pub which can boast two England distance running internationals among its regulars.

The connection doesn’t end there with Martin attending Bushfield School where Winstone was headmaster.

Martin’s rise as a runner was meteoric, and in 2015 he became the British Masters Marathon Champion. For several years has been up there with the best of Britain’s long distance masters runners

"Eric really helped me when I began running in 2013 by suggesting I started going to parkrun and join a club,” he said.

"For that I’ll be eternally grateful. Immersing myself in the local running community played a huge part in developing me as a runner, although I could never have imagined how far the journey would take me.

"Eric always offered advice and provided me with a challenge about his PBs and throughout my running journey he’s always been a champion of mine.

"However he has now started asking me for advice. For me representing my country, at any level is something I never envisioned possible and something I’ve been lucky enough to do on more than one occasion.

"For the two of us to have achieved the accolade of wearing a national vest at masters level is something special.”

Winstone is getting more involved in coaching these days and is clearly proud of the achievements of the man he inspired.

He said: “The thing about Phil is his great attitude towards training and racing. Sometimes he probably trains too hard but he carries that energy into his races.

"He’s an inspiration to all runners when it comes to pain threshold and

is a great example of working hard and showing you get out what you put in. His Marathon age group record is superb and he continues to set high targets for himself.”