250km | 6 Stages | self-supported

5-14 AUGUST 2025

Where legends meet

THE EARLY DAYS

I came to running quite late. I was an all-round sports child, but Rugby was my first love and the only running I did was while training for other sports.

It is quite a story how I first became a runner. Back in the day, it was compulsory for UK secondary schools [11 to 16 years] to hold a cross-country run each year as part of the physical education program.

Well, not being a runner during the first two years I never completed the three-mile event, I and many others would run to a thicket on the course, perhaps half a mile, and hide in there until many of the runners had passed us on their way back and then slip into the bunch for the return journey. Of course, we thought we were so clever.

In year three, now thirteen years old and an accomplished rugby player, things changed.
Crossing the finish line in my usual manner my rugby coach, Mr. Pallister, pulled me to one side and said “Willis you are a waste of space and a disgrace to the school and yourself. Do you think we don’t know what you boys are up to? We expect it from many of the lazy so and so’s but not from the likes you”

I took it to heart and decided to show him who was a lazy so and so.

The following year, several months before the cross-country run I started to train myself, I was going to show him what I was made of.
On race day I set off like a mad thing, probably not how I should have but I had no race experience. To cut things short , not only did I run well, I actually came home in first place in a very mixed bag of close to one-thousand boys.

But that was not good enough for me, I made a beeline for Mr. Pallister, I needed to make sure he knew exactly what I had achieved. As I approached him, in a voice loud enough to ensure I heard him, he turned to another teacher and said “I told you Willis had it in him, he just needed a kick in the pants” he then turned to me and said “Willis, my office first thing in the morning, I will explain what your duties are now that you are the captain of the school cross-country team”.

And that, as they say, was the beginning of something great. Running as a youngster gave me real pleasure and pride. I was never the best, but I was very competitive and had my share of wins through the years. I suppose my greatest moments back then was representing my district and London at a school-boy level.

I continued cross-country running, I didn’t enjoy track running, perhaps because I was not fast enough at short distances and the longest distance run then for my age group was one mile, until I entered university.  As I was not intelligent enough to learn and spend the many hours of training that I needed to remain competitive I stopped competitive running.

I continued to play rugby, cricket, and a little football for many years, but I never got back into competitive running, I just run for fitness and pleasure never more than ten miles and usually much less.
I cannot say I missed running because my life was full in other ways.

FAST FORWARD A LIFETIME

After retiring I moved to Malaysia, for no other reason than I love the country and its wildlife, my second passion.I got back into running purely by chance. I was working my way through my bucket list, I had ticked off all those that took little effort like, white-water rafting, parachute jump, bungy jump and now at the top of my list was Run a Marathon. Five or six months of self-training and off I went in the Penang Bridge International Marathon at the grand old age of sixty-four.