A SEPTUAGENARIAN who completed 19 marathons as a younger man has taken up running again in a bid to complete 20 races.

Grandfather Clive Reynolds, 71, took up cross-country running in 1958 when he joined the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards to serve in Germany during the Cold War.

And, later, when he moved to Didcot to work as a policeman at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell, he began marathon running.

He went on to complete 19 marathons, starting in Abingdon in 1980 and including the Snowdonia Marathon and six London Marathons. He ran his last, in London, in 1997, aged 58.

But, in May, he decided to join a Just Jog beginners' class at Didcot Wave Leisure Centre and has vowed to complete a full score.

Mr Reynolds, of Green Close, Didcot, said: “I just sort of stopped running after that last marathon, and thought that would be it.

“Only in the last couple of years, I have had this hankering to do one more. I used to read about these 70-year-olds getting pretty fast times, and wondered whether I could have done that if I had kept it up.

“Then I saw an advert in the school newsletter about the running classes. I noticed I had been putting on weight and was just not fit. I said to my wife that I was going to have a go and start running again. It is just an ambition to do that 20th marathon.”

With four grandchildren aged seven to 19, Mr Reynolds is older than most of the runners in the group and said he found it much harder than he used to.

He said: “The mind is there and the ambition is there. I know all the tricks of the trade, but the body is not willing to do it like it used to.

“I find it harder to do it, although it has got easier over time.

“We started with jogging for a couple of minutes, then walking for a couple of minutes, and so on. The longest I have done now is four-and-a-half miles and I’m preparing for the Blenheim 10K next month and, hopefully, go on from there. Getting ready for the marathon is going to take at least 12 months.”

He said: “I have always liked cross-country running. You are doing something, keeping fit, and seeing a bit of the countryside and different places.”

At 66, his wife Suzanne also keeps active, working as a teaching assistant at Northbourne School, where she teaches the children to swim.