Ian Newns had not long completed an ultra-marathon when he spoke to The Local Answer.

The 42-year-old had taken part in the Berkeley Marathons – a race inspired by the Barkley Marathons in Tennessee in the US – and had completed 108 miles in 22 hours.

“I’m sore in all the usual places – knees, legs, hips – so I’m not feeling like running too much at the moment,” he said.

Fortunately, Newns, a keen member of Stroud and District Athletic Club, has plenty of things to keep him involved as far as running is concerned because he has recently taken over as chairman of Stroud AC from the long-serving Jim Adams.

It’s a role he’s delighted to take on and he says he’s keen to build on the great work of Adams, who will serve as his vice-chairman.

Newns certainly ticks all the boxes. He was born in Stroud, he lives in Stroud and he first joined the club when he was a pupil at Marling School.

“I trained with the club’s juniors, although I didn’t really race for them,” he said. “I used to do cross-country at school. I ran for Gloucestershire when I was 16 or 17 and competed in the English Schools Cross Country Championships in 2000.”

A certain Mo Farah also competed in that race and Newns continued: “I knew he was good even then but I didn’t know just how good.”

Four-times Olympic gold medal winner Farah continued to run and run, of course, but Newns, who works in cyber security, took a backwards step in the early noughties.

“I never stopped altogether, but in my late teens and early 20s I stopped running regularly,” he said. “I’d run on a treadmill and I used to go jogging but I didn’t really get back into running properly until I was 33.”

So what was it that rekindled his love for the sport?

“I was always flirting with it,” he said. “I ran a marathon in 2007 in three hours, 22. Then my brother-in-law Pete Smith took up running and ran the London Marathon in 2018 where he beat my time.

“I thought, ‘He’s only been running 10 minutes!’. That’s what spurred me to start training properly again.

“I’d always had my heart set on running a sub three hours marathon so I went back to Stroud Athletic Club.”

Not that everything was straightforward.

“I wanted to run the London Marathon but you have to have run a sub three hours to qualify,” Newns explained.

“I found a downhill course in the US – the Mt Charleston Marathon in Las Vegas. It’s a 6,000ft descent and I did it in two hours, 55.

He shaved two minutes off that time in the 2019 London Marathon and now has a PB of two hours, 36 minutes, three seconds for the distance which he set in Tokyo last year.

And while his time in London wasn’t his best, he has very good memories of the build-up to the race and the race itself.

“I enjoyed being back running with Stroud,” he said. “I enjoyed the camaraderie. The more you run, the quicker you get. That makes you want to run more and you get even quicker.

“We had eight runners from the club run sub three hours that day, now we’ve got eight runners at the club who can run sub 2.40.”

As you’d expect, the club means a lot to the dad-of-three, who is married to Lindsey.

Their 11-year-old daughter Rosie, a pupil at Stroud High School, is a keen runner and her dad was looking forward to watching her run at the national road relay championships in Birmingham at the time of this interview.

She was running for Stroud AC and she is one of 100 or so juniors at the club, which is made up of about 440 members.

Newns has a keen focus on the junior section, saying “it’s the future of the club”.

“I want the juniors to be able to transition into senior running,” he said.

“That’s the age we are losing too many runners. I know because it happened to me.

“I want the adults to see how well the juniors are doing and vice-versa. I want there to be mutual appreciation.

“I want the different parts of the club – the juniors, the racing side and the social side – to fuel each other.”

And there is more on his to-do list because he wants to increase the club’s membership.

“There’s no limit on numbers,” he continued. “The more runners we have the stronger we’ll be.

“As a club we have been punching above our weight and that’s something I want us to continue to do.”

Increasing the number of juniors would also help, of course, but therein lies a problem.

“We haven’t got enough coaches,” admitted Newns, who can now help coach the juniors after qualifying as an assistant coach.

“It’s a problem across all sports, there is a shortage of volunteers. We’ve got a massive waiting list which means that capable kids can’t run with us.

“The aim is to attract more volunteers so that we can give opportunities to more kids.”

Newns was one of the lucky ones who was given an opportunity back in the day and he’s reaped the benefits.

He ran a marathon in the England Age Group Masters Championships in Chester in 2022 – he clocked 2.38 – and also ran in the age group world championships in Sydney when he finished 10^th, also in 2.38.

He’s run the London Marathon three times and completed 26.2 miles in New York, Chicago, Boston and Berlin as well as Tokyo.

“They are the six traditional majors,” said Newns. “Sydney has recently been added as the seventh.”

The marathon is his favourite distance, although he’s not too sure how many more he’s going to run, explaining: “My times aren’t going to get any better.”

There are plenty of other distances out there for him, of course, and he thoroughly enjoys running for Stroud in team events.

“We won the Cotswold Way Relay,” he said. “We broke the course record.”

Newns was just one part of that team and he says he is just one part of what is a very well-run club.

“I want to make sure the club stays in good shape and they are, it’s not just me, we’ve got a very good committee.”