Shona's Still Going Strong

EIGHTEEN YEARS AFTER SHE LAST WON THE MANCHESTER MARATHON, SHONA CROMBIE-HICKS IS RETURNING TO THE RACE IN APRIL

- Jason Henderson

 AS A FORMER horse racing jockey, Commonwealth Games marathon runner and winner of the gruelling 1000-mile Challenge in London in 2003, Shona Crombie-Hicks was never short of staying power.

Now, aged 46, she is still running well and targeting this year’s Asics Greater Manchester Marathon – 18 years after she first won a 26.2-mile race in the north-west city.

At the turn of the millennium her victory in Manchester was a breakthrough performance. With a time of 2:42:22 she went from unknown fun runner to Commonwealth Games selection contender. “It seems like so long ago now,” she says. “But I’m looking forward to going back on April 8.”

Few runners have a background as colourful as Crombie-Hicks. She began her sporting life as a jockey and in 1995 she rode 10-1 shot Aitch ‘N Bee to victory at the Ash Handicap at Wolverhampton, beating Frankie Dettori on the 6-1 hope Rockstine.

Outside the UK, she also had a stint of horse racing in New Zealand and won a big cup race at Ellerslie in Auckland on an 85-1 rank outsider. However, by 1997 she had given up the sport and had started running to keep fit on a treadmill in a gym.

Born in Aberdeen and raised in Portsmouth, she was 27 when she started running and her main goal was to lose weight she had gained since her jockey days.