This year is set to be very busy for Alex May.

The 57-year-old has taken over as race director of the Gloucester 10K, the first time he has taken on the leading role.

The race has become one of the big summer sporting events in the city over the past decade – it takes place on Sunday 29^th June this year – and some 1,000 runners are set to take part. 

May is a member of the Rotary Club of Gloucester Quays, who are running the 10K, and he is very familiar with the event because he assisted previous race director Nigel Tillott for a number of years.

This year Tillott is assisting him and May said: “We want everyone to have fun – the runners, spectators and marshals. Hopefully the weather will be nice.”

The race starts and finishes in Gloucester Park and May continued: “We’re looking to expand what goes on the in park this year to add more fun for participants and spectators alike.”

May, a solicitor who lives in Gloucester, is a recent convert to running.

“I took up running only about five or six years ago,” he said. “My wife started running just before me, I went for a run with her and struggled to keep up and I thought, ‘I better start taking this a bit more seriously’.”

Neither of them are a member of a club but they are both very keen on parkruns.

“I do one every Saturday,” continued May. “I usually run in Gloucester Park but I’ve actually done a parkrun in 60-odd locations.”

May and his wife Claire have completed the parkrun alphabet challenge which, as the name implies, involves running a parkrun beginning with every letter of the alphabet.

“There isn’t a parkrun for the letter X and we had to go to Poland for the letter Z,” he said with a laugh.

That was the Zielony Jar parkrun in Krakow and they’ve also taken part in parkruns in Germany, Sweden, Scotland and Wales.”

Claire will be running in the 10K at the end of June – the race starts at 8.30am – and her husband said: “She’s done a marathon and she runs half marathons regularly.”

May won’t be taking part, however.

“I’m not running,” he said, “but I’ll be doing a lot of running around!”

The event is expected to raise well in excess of £10,000 for local charities.

Last year’s race was won by Bristol and West runner Ben Robinson in 32 minutes, 59 seconds.

To find out more and to enter the race, visit https://RunGloucester.co.uk