Dave Clarke enjoys running and he’s achieved plenty in a sport that he first got involved in well over 30 years ago.

For a start he’s chair of Severn Athletic Club, the Gloucester-based club formed in 1994 and one that has enjoyed something of a resurgence in recent years.

He took on the top job at the back end of 2019 having joined the club some 18 months earlier, and it’s fair to say that he’s a big supporter of all things Severn AC.

“We’re a really strong club, we’ve got a membership of 92, consisting of active members, volunteers and life-long members,” he told The Local Answer.

“We’re a club that are competitive – there are some targeted competitions – but ultimately we’re a club that encourages runners.

“We help them to be the best they can be, to achieve what they want to achieve. We support Gloucestershire races and we support local runners.

“We don’t just do 5K and 10K, we’ve got runners who do ultra-marathons and canicross, and we do a lot of cross-country.”

Originally from Bolton, the soon-to-be 52-year-old Clarke, who works in the military, moved to Gloucester in 2017, but it was as a teenager when he joined the Army that he developed his love for running.

“I started running when I was 17,” he said. “Wherever I served I ran – Germany, Cyprus, the Falklands, all over the UK – I ran at a decent level.”

He continued running until his early 30s before taking a break and it wasn’t until his early 40s that he rekindled his love affair with the sport.

“I was serving in the Falklands and on a whim I entered the half-marathon,” he said.

He remembers that he ran one hour 34 or 35, but although that was a pretty decent time it was still a few more years before he was to run competitively again.

That was when he joined Severn AC, a move he’s obviously never regretted.

“I’d been doing parkruns and then I entered the club’s Easter Monday event which is officially called the Tredworth 4.3 miles,” he explained. “I then went to a training session and it’s all gone from there.”

Clarke is a big fan of cross-country, which dovetails nicely with the club’s ambitions as cross-country is one of their targeted competitions.

“The club target the Birmingham and Gloucestershire cross-country leagues, as well as the Midlands Spring and Autumn relays and the Cotswold Way Relay,” Clarke said.

“For the men, the Birmingham Cross-Country League is very important. We got promoted to Division Two at the end of last season, that was a massive achievement.

“Our aim is now to establish ourselves in the higher division, this season we just want to survive.”

For the ladies, the Gloucestershire Cross-Country League is very important and their participation shows just how far the club have come in recent times.

“A couple of years ago we had only two or three female runners,” said Clarke. “Now we’ve got 14 so we’re really pleased about that, but we do want to attract more.

“We try to support all the Gloucestershire races. We’ve already got 26 or 27 runners taking part in the Staverton 10 in January.”

And while cross-country is his favourite event, Clarke likes a 10K.

“Anything from 10K up to 10 miles I really enjoy,” he said. “Anything after that I do find it much harder.”

When he was younger he used to enjoy the 800 metres, but he’s not averse to running the longer distances and over the years has completed five marathons with a best time of three hours, eight minutes.

He’s run farther than that, too, taking part in a 37-mile charity run in the Falklands back in the 90s.

So which of his many runs over the years is he most proud of?

“That’s a good question,” he said. “I think I’d have to say the Hereford 5K after I’d just turned 50, we’d just come out of lockdown.

“I’d been able to do a lot of training during lockdown and I ran it in 17 minutes, 44. That was probably my best run, everything just felt right – right time, right place.

“Normally I hate 5K but my fitness levels were good and I’d done a lot of training, everything just landed right.”

And everything has been landing right for Severn AC over the past half-a-dozen years or so.

“The club were really struggling and almost ceased to exist,” said Clarke. “The Brown family – Andy and Sandra, their son Chris and his now wife Meg – kept the club going for a number of years before everything started to pick up around 2016/17.

“They breathed life back into the club, now we’re really strong.”

Clarke succeeded Andy Brown as chairman and he is certainly building on his predecessor’s good work.

“We have no upper limit for members,” he said. “One of the things I want to see is our female membership continue to grow.

“We’re an inclusive club and to see that balance starting to tip is really pleasing.”

Clarke, meanwhile, is planning to keep on running for a good while yet and he will certainly continue to challenge himself.

“I don’t want to be going any slower,” he insisted, before adding, “I know my age may be against me. There will come a time when I have to wind back, but if I can run 5K or 10K in organised races for the next 10 to 20 years that would be amazing.”

And there are runners at Severn AC who are demonstrating that’s clearly possible.

“We’ve got a couple of runners in their 70s,” continued Clarke. “Greg Leyshon runs anything from 5K to a marathon.

“He ran a marathon in just over four hours not too long ago, he still comes training and he’s doing the Staverton 10.

“If I can be as active as him at that age that would be a great success.”