Forty years after running his first London Marathon, Greg Leyshon completed the iconic race for a second time last month.

The 75-year-old set a personal best time of two hours, 36 minutes for the distance back in 1985 and although he was a lot slower 16 days ago, completing the 26.2 miles this time around meant just as much to him.

That’s because he was accompanied by his son Matt who, like his dad, is a member of Severn Athletic Club.

“We ran the London Marathon together, start to finish,” said 43-year-old Matt. “Three or four miles in we decided to jog and walk the race together, we did it in six hours.”

And what made it just that bit more special is that Greg, who is known at Severn AC as Old Man Greg or OMG, says it will be his last ever marathon.

Greg, who like Matt lives in Gloucester, has been running for more than 50 years.

He was originally a member of Gloucester Athletic Club and was the first member of the club to run a marathon.

“It was the Michelin Marathon in Stoke-on-Trent,” said Matt, who was with his dad when he spoke to The Local Answer. “He can remember his time too – three hours, three minutes, 31 seconds.”

Greg, whose brother Ken was a keen long distance runner back in the day, left Gloucester AC in 1994 when Severn AC was founded by Terry Haines.

“He’s run about 22 marathons,” continued Matt. “He’s run a lot of half-marathons too, his best time is one hour, 13 minutes at Stroud in 1981 or 1982.”

That is considerably faster than Matt’s best of one hour, 45 minutes over 13.1 miles, also set in Stroud, but Matt said: “I only started running during Covid, I was never a massive fan of running.”

So what changed?

“My dad was due to run the Newport Marathon, it was during Covid and the race kept getting postponed,” explained former Beaufort School pupil Matt.

“My wife Helen said that if got postponed again she was signing me up to run with my dad.”

It did get postponed again so there was no way out for Matt. “I’d never even run 5K,” he said. 

But Matt, a postman, delivered on the day, running a very respectable four hours, 15 minutes, although he admitted: “I struggled when I got to 20 miles, I fell apart, I was just holding on.”

Last month’s London Marathon was his second over the distance and he’s just completed his third because he ran the Rob Burrow Leeds Marathon on Sunday with his brother-in-law Dave Stephens.

The two are also planning to run the Lanzarote Marathon in December.

Matt is also a regular on the half-marathon and 10K circuits while Greg, a former Hucclecote School pupil, will continue to run 5Ks and 10Ks.

“He’s not stopping anytime soon,” said Matt.

And what about another marathon, does Matt think his dad will have a change of heart?

“Never say never,” he said.