Arunners duo complete 500 Marathons

Tim Boone, 67, recently completed his 300th Marathon in Cyprus, with Nuala Smyth, 60, completing her 200th at Brighton.

A grand total of 500 between them, a total of 13,100 miles (and more likely closer to 14,000 miles as some were ultra marathons), that’s the equivalent of running all the way to Singapore and back from the UK. Tim and Nuala are both

For Tim his love of marathons started back in 1991 when he completed his first ever marathon in the New Forest. He vowed never to do another at the time but was very quickly signing up for his next.

His first marathon was completed in just over 4 hours. Since then he has done many marathons under 4 hours including London Marathon last year in 3hrs19min making him 9th in his age category (out of 419).

In all the marathons Tim has completed, he has done some very interesting ones. Examples include Svalbard (close to the North Pole) where polar bears had to be looked out for!

Istanbul was memorable because of the constant torrential rain, with some runners setting off over the Bosphorus Bridge carrying umbrellas. Or Comrades Marathon (56 miles) in South Africa in 35 degree heat. Also memorable, though rather less exotic, was the multi-storey car park marathon in Worthing.

Nuala started her marathon journey at London Marathon back in 2008. A conscious decision, not a ‘one day, fall out of bed and decide to run a marathon’ thing. Hard work and training went into completing this.

This created the love of the distance and over time, the number of marathons stacked up without Nuala really realising. One leading to another, and then another.

Some 33 of Nuala’s marathons have been under 4 hours. Nuala has done London marathon 9 times, and has done a number overseas which include Paris, Lanzarote, Barcelona and Paphos and also 5 marathons in South Africa, her favourite place to run an event. This includes Comrades Ultras in South Africa twice in extreme heat.

Nuala is an avid fan of Brighton Marathon, having run them all, and on her 50th Birthday, the race organisers gave her the number 5050.

Nuala’s recent marathon in Brighton was a particularly special achievement for her, not just because it was her 200th or her 60th birthday, but because she had been undergoing cancer treatment prior to this.

Despite this she was still able to get those trainers on, get out there and get it done. What was even more incredible was she came first in her age category with a time of 3hrs 51mins.

Nuala and Tim won’t stop at 500 and will go on to run more marathons. Tim is planning on running the South Downs Way 100 (that’s 100 miles) later this year.

Congratulations to Tim and Nuala on a massive achievement.