(Thanks to Ian Thomas for the update)

As the team will recall Patrick Macke has kindly donated the impressive trophy he won for winning Spartathlon in 1985 in a time of 23:18:00 h. Patrick still holds the record for the best British Performance 23:08 (1990) and during his career has set world records over various distances.

Patrick’s wish is that we rename the trophy the ‘Michael Callaghan Trophy’ after the original Spartathlon organiser Michael Graham Callaghan who unfortunately passed away in 2013 and award it as a perpetual trophy for the best British Performance at Spartathlon each year. I’m sure you’ll agree this is a very kind gesture by Patrick which will be greatly appreciated by all future British Spartathlon runners.

I had the great pleasure of recently collecting the trophy from the custodians Malcolm and Marilyn Campbell but had no idea that Malcolm was in fact a world beater himself on the Ultra scene and inaugural President of the IAU.

His presidency of the IAU started when he was fifty years old and before the age of fifty one he ran one of his races across America in a match race against Marvin Skagerberg (USA)

Malcolm stopped running around the age of sixty and eventually retired from the IAU at the age of seventy but not before he introduced the Constitution at the first IAU Congress.

Malcolm and his wife Marilyn were wonderful, warm and hospitable hosts to me and gave me a valuable insight into the history of Utra Running and the IAU. They also extended a warm welcome to any of the British Spartathlon Team that would like to drop by and have a chat about our wonderful sport and its colourful history.

It was a privilege to meet Malcolm and Marilyn of course, who has supported him throughout his long and impressive running career and Presidency of the IAU. As well as supporting Malcolm, Marilyn took many of the photos used in cover shots for The IAU over many years.

As custodians of the trophy to date, Malcolm and Marilyn have now passed that responsibility to the British Spartathlon Team thanks to Patrick, and on behalf of the team, Gill and I will update the trophy to reflect its new role as a perpetual trophy for the best British Performance, once we’ve agreed wording (Thanks Ian).

Many thanks to Patrick, Malcolm and Marilyn for their kindness in helping the British Spartathlon Team with their kind gestures.

Ian

Note: Malcolm and Marilyn gave Ian a collection of old articles from a rare book from 1985/86 called the Grantham Connection by author Jim Allen. One page of the book features Pattryk and Malcom, which highlighted their achievements at that time which is shown below.

Thank you to the author Jim Allen for allowing us to display a copy of this article.