Nice guys DO win. Dave Bell has been proving that for the past seven years or so since joining Cirencester Athletics Club.

The 32-year-old has been winning at his level much the same way as Mo Farah has at his and just like Great Britain’s Olympic hero, Bell does it with a smile on his face.

He’s modest too. When he spoke to The Local Answer, the Stroud Half Marathon on Sunday 22nd October was very much on his radar – a race he won last year in one hour, 10 minutes, nine seconds.

“Yes,” he said, “I enjoyed the win but in years gone by the race has been won by East Africans who have gone round in 64 or 65 minutes.”

Bell’s preparations this time around have been hampered by a hamstring injury which he picked up in July and sidelined him for a month.

He’s up and running again now, however, and back to somewhere near his best. He recently competed in the Stratford 10K which he won and he’s desperate to defend his Stroud Half title.

“It was a cracking race last year,” he said. “It was one of my fastest ever half marathons but it’s not a particularly flat or fast course.”

The Cheltenham-born Bell has come a long way since his schooldays when he would compete at cross-country. He was good enough to run at county level but by his own admission was not bitten by the running bug while he was at Chipping Campden School.

“I did a lot of kayaking when I was younger,” he said. “I used to compete in the longer races. Then I got into running and at the age of 17 I took part in the Great North Run. I’d never even raced a 5K or a 10K but here I was running a half marathon. I ran all the way and really enjoyed it and finished in one hour 26 minutes. The half marathon is definitely my distance.”

Bell started to take his running more seriously at Nottingham University – where he studied Zoology – and he continued to run post-education although not competitively. What he lost in competition, however, he more than made up for in life experiences that few people have on their CV.

“I spent three years in South Africa on a meerkat project,” he said. “I followed meerkats all day watching their behaviour. It was great.

“We were based on the edge of Kalahari Desert just below the Namibia border. I’d go out for a run and I’d be out with wildebeest and springboks, it was amazing.”

Fun it may have been but the competitive juices soon started to flow again when he returned to this country in 2009.

He started work at Cirencester College in 2010 – he’s now Head of Biology – and he’s been reproducing winning performances since joining Cirencester AC at about the same time he started his new job.

In addition to the Stroud Half and Stratford Half, the extremely affable Bell has won the Cricklade Half, Cirencester 10K and Evesham 10K to name just a few.

He also won the Windsor Half in January. “It was round Dorney Lake and it was a freezing cold January day,” he said. “They were quite good running conditions and I ran my second fastest half marathon time of one hour, nine minutes, 45 seconds.”

The married dad-of-two has twice gone under 70 minutes for the half marathon and is proud and satisfied with what he has achieved in his running career.

Family and work commitments mean there is only so much time he can spend on his favourite hobby but press him and he’ll say he would like to run a sub 32-minute 10K. His best to date is eight seconds over that mark.

“I’m happy with what I’ve achieved,” he said. “I don’t want running to take over my life. I’ve been very lucky. Cirencester are a great club and I’m proud to wear their vest.

“It’s nice when you can win because we’re not a huge club. It’s a good feeling because we’re up against some big clubs like Cheltenham Harriers who are formidable in terms of strength and depth.”

You get the impression that Bell, who is married to Sophie, will be looking to put one over the bigger boys for a number of years to come but when old father time does dictate that it’s time to hang up his running spikes there’s every chance that the Bell name will still ring out on the winner’s rostrum in the mid-to-late 2030s and beyond.

That’s because his two daughters – Savannah, who has just started school, and two-year-old Dakota – have already shown an interest in running with Daddy.

“Savannah is very keen,” said Bell, “she’s always asking if she can run with me. We live in Fairford and we’re very lucky because there are so many nice places to go running.

“We did a mile round Fairford – it only took her 14 minutes – and she’s done a couple of fun runs. Even Dakota says she wants to run with Daddy.”

And with Sophie also happy to put on her running shoes, it looks like this story could run and run.