We got changed at the Coatsworth Road Junior School," recalled Charlie. "There were no showers when you came in sweaty from a 10-mile run, only washbasins which were about a foot off the floor and tiny. And only cold water. We weren't pampered in those days, I can tell you! This is an article by Charlie Spedding, whose blog can be found here. Charlie is a former pharmacist. He was also a champion long-distance runner in his younger days. He was the winner of the 1984 London Marathon, and he is an Olympic bronze medallist.

Before the race I concentrated on one thing - positive thinking - because if you don't believe it can happen it won't. It's no good kidding yourself. It has to be for real. You have to believe with all your heart." The emotionally manipulative and coercive language around masks focuses on what they represent – showing you care

Brendan Foster and Charlie Spedding on the impact Dunn had on their lives and the wider sport following the coaching legend’s death aged 77

I've often wished I was a bit fitter and now I have an incentive. I'm actually getting out more often because I have the motivation." Who am I to criticise a Knight of the Realm with his long and distinguished career? I have worked for most of my life as a pharmacist but left my profession several years ago feeling very disillusioned. Too many people were taking medication for metabolic diseases but never getting better. The drugs were treating the symptoms but not the root cause of their illness. I have devoted recent years to researching and writing about the real reasons so many people are ill. Clearly, lifestyle factors are to blame and among them diet has the biggest influence. Tragically, the official dietary guidelines, issued by the NHS and the Government, are a major cause of most of the metabolic diseases suffered by so many people. The pharmaceutical industry benefits from this situation: official advice makes people ill and symptom-treating drugs make those people patients for life. A time of nostalgia, to bathe in an era of great local success on the world scene? Or a ridiculous challenge for Spedding, now 51 and out of serious training for the last 12 years? Probably both if the truth were faced. On his coaching ability, Wilkinson said: “He loved sharing information. He spoke to everybody and said that nothing was a secret.” It has been known for many years that high levels of Vitamin D greatly reduce the severity of respiratory infections and is a vital component of our innate immunity. Because Vitamin D is produced by sunshine on the skin, our levels are invariably lowest during winter, which explains why influenza is so much more prevalent in the darkest months. Researchers around the world, who are aware of this, have tested hospitalised Covid-19 patients for Vitamin D. An Indonesian study found a death rate of only 4% among people with normal levels. People with insufficient levels of Vitamin D died at a rate of 87.8% and those who were deemed deficient in Vitamin D died from the virus at the extraordinary rate of 98.9%. An American study by Dr Eric Hermstad showed that death or serious illness invariably occurred among those with Vitamin D levels below 25 nanograms per ml, which is 5ng/ml below the national average. Nobody who was admitted to hospital, in his study, had a Vitamin D level above 40ng/ml, suggesting that this prevented hospitalisation.

This was my first Olympics. I was 32 years old. Beforehand, the one thing I said that I must not do is finish the race thinking: “I wish I’d done this.” Later on, when we got to about 21-22 miles, I’d expected De Castella or somebody to push really hard. I was mentally ready for it but I looked around the group and no one else was going to push.Charlie Spedding is the second fastest British marathoner of all time and in the 28 years since Los Angeles, no Brit, male or female has won a medal of any colour in the Olympic marathon. This man is an icon of British sport, someone we in the North-East are massively proud of. Emelyanov is just the latest name in a long list of Russian race walkers to be caught doping (number 17, to be exact). They've all walked under once esteemed Russian coach Viktor Chegin, who now seems to have lost whatever protection he was getting from the Russian authorities. Little did I know that my first experience of the London Marathon would be timed so perfectly, at least from the perspective of a young British sports fan. In the intervening years there has been very little to cheer in the men's race, Britain's last win coming in 1993 through Eamonn Martin, but maybe Mo Farah is the hope on the horizon that marathon running in this country needs. People should be motivated to help others (as well as themselves) rather than battling for money, power, influence and dominance. I might easily have run in the 10,000 metres myself if I'd blown up in Houston. But as it was Mike finished third in the final and ended up with the silver medal when the Finn Martti Vainio was found to be a drugs cheat and I ran the race of my life in the marathon."

These, and cancers, are conditions of systemic and cellular breakdown caused by increasing age. They are nothing to do with diet. I am old enough to have been aware of old people having diabetes and cancers before the ‘obesity’ crisis and Government steering people to a high carbohydrate diet. Spedding's old rival, Steve Jones, held the men's world record but never won a major championship medal in the marathon. He was, however, wise enough to take Spedding's advice four miles from the finish of that memorable 1985 race in London. "We were hammering away at the front," Spedding reflected, "and right out of the blue Steve turned to me and said, 'Charlie, how do you go to the toilet when you're running?' I was amazed, but after a couple of seconds I said, 'Well, I think you'll have to stop, Steve'." A look at Jones's training schedule reveals just how determined he was to be prepared; in the five weeks prior to the event, Jones put in the hard yards, or miles in his case, running 100, 84, 71, 71 and 100 miles leading up to the race.Britain’s disastrous decision to abandon testing for coronavirus occurred because health systems could only cope with five cases a week, official documents show. Dunn’s coaching CV reads like a who’s who of British distance running. From 1980s icons like Barry Smith and Geoff Turnbull through to Dominic Bannister, Tom Mayo, Andy Caine and Mike Openshaw, plus current runners like Chris Parr and Carl Avery. He even helped Benita Willis, the 2004 world cross-country champion from Australia, for a spell.