‘It’s just you against yourself’: Luton dad gearing up for his 200th marathon

Noel Keenan, 63, ran his first marathon in 2002 after setting himself the challenge.

He said: “I wanted to do one before my 40th - and that was the driver. Once you’ve done a marathon… you think, well, I’ll do another one.”

And he did, and focused on improving his time with each race.

Whether by doing triathlons or IronMan challenges, the former Vauxhall employee had racked up hundreds of miles running in local, national and international marathons.

He even did 50 and 100-mile runs, with the latter lasting 22 hours.

Noel said: “I ran about 60 miles, then it got dark… started hallucinating about two or three in the morning. A 100 miles only counts as one, unfortunately.”

In 2015, he left the triathlons behind and focused on joining the ‘100 marathon club’, and a year later, he had done 41 marathons in 12 months.

He said: “Your body can do a lot more… it’s conquering the mental thing that’s saying, stop, walk. When you’re out there… it’s just you against yourself.”

In 2017, he completed another 45, and did 52 in as many weeks.

When he was doing marathons every week, he didn’t focus on training, instead it was rest.

Noel explained: “I was probably doing one… and then basically not running until the next weekend.”

After reaching his initial goal of 100 marathons, he scaled back but continued his hobby, running smaller numbers each year.

But, after retiring in 2020, he built up again, deciding to aim for 200 marathons.

Noel said: “You sort of get drawn back into it… it’s just what I did.”

He is now carefully planning his 200th marathon in Milton Keynes on May 4, marking both his milestone and his 10th time running that event.

When asked if this will be the last one, he said: “100% that will be it.”

He gave runners who want to complete a marathon some advice: “Build slowly. Work up to it, and enjoy running. Treat it with respect.

“Anyone can do it, there are no limits to what you can do.”