18th IAAF World Half Marathon Championships - Birmingham 2009

News

Mrs and Mrs Miles to represent GB at the World Half Marathon

08 Oct 2009

Ask Mark Miles how long he has been married and he will tell you three years. Ask his wife Gemma, and she will tell you two-and-a-half. His advice is to believe her because he is not very good on dates.

But one day in the calendar they agree upon is Sunday October 11. This Sunday infact. It has been earmarked for quite a while and it will take the couple into athletics history.

Mark and Gemma will become the first husband and wife to represent the Aviva Great Britain and Northern Ireland team at the major athletics event of this weekend – the IAAF/EDFENERGY World Half-marathon Championships in Birmingham. And they cannot wait.

“I am really looking forward to it,” says Gemma. “It is great having Mark there.” Mark says: “It is fantastic we are both in the team. With the women’s race first on Sunday, hopefully Gemma will be able to see me cross the line. It was the other way at the trials.” That was five weeks ago, an event that was incorporated into the Bristol Half-marathon.

Miles finished third in the men’s race in 64:54 while, on her debut at the distance, Gemma was fifth in 73:13.

But do not think since then that running is all they talk about, though with the name ‘Miles’ you would have thought athletics might be locked into their marriage vows.
They live in Bromsgrove, a short distance from Sunday’s venue but as Mark, 32, who even works for a running shoe brand, says: “Running is not the be-all-and-end-all. The great thing is we have similar interests. “We both like all sports, we have similar hobbies in terms of eating out, travelling, theatre and cinema and we both watch a bit of football as well.”

Gemma, 29 later this month and a physio at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham, adds: “Running does not dominate our lives in terms of our relationship.” Though running did bring them together.

They first met at a Saturday morning training session held by her coach Bob Ashwood in which Mark took part. Gemma recalls: “Mark was training with one of Bob’s other athletes. Bob said to me that I might aswell come along and train there. That was the first time we met. “Mark then went off to South Africa for a couple of months training and when he came back he had had a virus. I had been ill (and because of that) we were both steady running at the start of the track season and we kind of hit it off from there.”

They now train together when they are not on their quality runs, and when they do it works well. Gemma says: “We find that we bounce off of each with advice on a day-to-day level and I find myself asking Mark things. When you are out running, you stop and you get that time together which is lovely.”

But Mark knows that sole concentration is the task ahead on Sunday. He says: “I will focus on my own race.” And though it is only Gemma’s second ‘race’ at the distance, she has tackled the 13.1-miles more than that. “I had taken part in a couple before Bristol but I kind of ran round them because Mark has been competing and it is easier than going for a Sunday run,” she says.

Next stop the World. On Sunday. A date that neither of them will ever forget.

Keep an eye on www.birminghamwhm2009.com for more big race build-up