In many ways Michael Younger has been playing catch-up since taking up running in the mid-noughties.

But catch up the 67-year-old certainly has, so much so that he is now a qualified coach able to help and develop runners at Tewkesbury Running Club where he has been a member for the past 10 years.

“I started running when I was 53,” he said, “so I was a bit of a late starter.”

Initially he ran on a treadmill at the gym at Tewkesbury Park and after 12 months of that he decided to take part in the Tewkesbury Half Marathon.

So how did he get on?

“I’d never run on the road before but I did alright,” he said. “I ran 1.48-something which was quite good for the first time of someone my age.”

And while it was obvious that he was a half decent runner, it was still a while before he took the decision to join Tewkesbury Running Club.

But when he eventually joined he was certainly glad he did because these days he’s the club’s vice-captain and a major part of all that’s good about the club.

“I needed to join the club to spur me on to be better,” he said.

And while that worked for him, he’s now doing the same for others who are looking to improve their running.

Initially he qualified as a run leader – club members Roy Northcott and Suzanne Tharme were also on the course – and Younger explained: “It allows me to teach newer runners or beginners how to run.

“We work to a set 10-week programme with the aim of getting them up to 5K.

“We try to get them to join the club so that we can develop them and so they can graduate to what they might call become proper runners.

“I just wanted to help others get into running. So many people say they can’t run but nearly everyone can do it. I’m living proof of that, I used to smoke 50 a day and never did any sport.”

Younger certainly is living proof of that because he has a personal best half marathon time of 1.38 – that was at Tewkesbury when he was aged 60 – and has also run a marathon.

That was in Edinburgh although he admits it was something he hadn’t planned on doing.

“I did it for a couple of the club’s ladies – Sheena Moseley and Samantha Robinson,” he explained. “I’d been their run leader on the beginners’ course. They’d been running for about a year when they said they’d entered the Edinburgh Marathon and would I help them. They’d never even run a half!”

Help them he did, of course, and they went round in about five hours and just as pleasing for Younger is that they are both still active runners today.

Younger himself is still very much an active runner even though he has just qualified as a running coach.

“I’m the oldest coach in town,” he laughed.

It means he can now progress the more experienced runners at the club and is qualified to write personal training programmes for runners as well as conducting sessions.

That’s a big step of course. Ask him which he prefers, coaching or running, and he’ll say “I like them both, I like to be involved”.

He admits that the coaching has had some impact on his own running and he says he would like to start recording something like the times he was achieving when he was aged 60.

“I think I can get back to where I was,” he said. “I’ve had a couple of injuries. I had a foot injury and then a week after my best time at Tewkesbury I tore my Achilles on a training run and was out for nine months.

“It’s devastating when you can’t run.”

And that period in Younger’s life was all the tougher because he’d come into the sport so late.

“Yes, I do wish I’d started running earlier,” he said. “I think I could have been a good runner. I’m small and light, I’ve got the build for distance running. I’m 10-stone and that does help, I can see how it’s hard work if you’re heavier.”

And although he was into his sixth decade before he got the running bug, Younger has certainly been making up for lost time. He does a lot of running with his wife Linda, who is also a member of Tewkesbury Running Club, along the lanes around their home in Corse Lawn and has run in a good number of half marathons.

“I prefer half marathons to a marathon because if you run a marathon you’re too tired to party afterwards,” he laughed.

When he spoke to The Local Answer he’d just returned to this country after competing in the Budapest Half with six other runners from the club, including his wife.

“That was real bad,” he admitted. “I finished in 1.55 and Linda did just over two hours. It was extremely hot, it was the heat that defeated us, nothing to do with the food and wine!”

And while it was obviously tougher than anticipated in Hungary, it hasn’t put off Younger from entering the Berlin Half in April and the Krakow Half in Poland later on in 2019.

In the past he’s run half marathons in Barcelona and Belfast and says he is looking to run two a year over the next couple of years or more.

Mind you, Younger doesn’t need to be in a race to go for a run around some of the more exotic destinations the world has to offer.

“I’ve run round Cape Town, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth,” he said. “I’ve run round European cities, I’ve run in the Algarve, in Lanzarote.

“I’m lucky that my wife likes to run as well. It gets you out and you can see so many things. If you walk it’s too slow, if you go by car it’s too fast. Running is perfect.”

And Michael Younger is living proof of that!