Alex Lepretre turned 30 recently and, has had an outstanding and surprising athletic career, so far.
He did over 3 hours for a marathon back in 2014, as an ‘Under 23’ student. His next run over that distance was when he ran 2:15.01 in the London Marathon of 2023. That sliced a chunk off the Highgate Harriers club record of 2:19.07,which had been done in 1977 by an equally, very likable, character, called Doug Gunstone, who was an international for Scotland. To my mind another high point was when Alex Lepretre won the Paddock Wood Half marathon, on the 13th of March 2022 in 64.38, in a course record. An impressive collection of runners had attempted to do what Alex achieved, which included Barry Royden; Nick Torry; Frank Tickner and, Joshua Grace (In 2023) Alex was also in Highgate’s12 man team that won the English title in the National 12 Stage (2023) road relay, on the 15th of April, at Sutton Park. Alex Lepretre’ works as a Commercial Solicitor in the City of London. Another point noted is that he loves cross-country running. He was 2nd in the Southern Senior Championships at Beckenham Place Park, on the 28th of January 2023. If you look at his Start Fitness Metropolitan League best yearly positions, I think, it makes quite interesting reading-2014 111; 2015 53rd ; 2016 24th ; 2017 10th; 2018 6th; 2019 2d,; 2020, 2nd; 201 2nd; 2022 1st~.
Regarding the marathon Bill Adcocks, who was a ‘World Class Marathon Man’ from Coventry Godiva, talked to me about the build up for a marathon and, how essential it is to run a 20 mile race, rather than just a half marathon, as a build up to a marathon. With that in mind it was good to see that Alex Lepetre won the Hillingdon 20 miles road race in 1:42.26 on the 26th of March, before running the London in 2:15 on the 23rd of April.
Now for Alex Lepretre and his start out in the sport:
“I started running at Queen Elizabeth Boyd School, Barnet but, not a huge amount of running. I used to run in the School’s cross-country. I used to do well in that. The school put me forward for the Barnet School’s cross countries. For a very short period, when I was 12 I trained with Shaftesbury Barnet. They saw me at one of the Schools events and said ‘Come along’ but that was only for a few months in the Summer then, I started school in the Autumn and played a lot of rugby. When I did that the athletics just dropped off. It was only at the end of my time at University at Nottingham that I started to do a bit more running. One of my flat mates used to do a few half marathons so, we both entered a few for fun. Because of that I started to do a bit more running and Park Runs.”
Did he feel there was a breakthrough as he started running a bit more?
“Not a breakthrough per-se as I was only running about 1hour30 for a half marathon but I was doing the Park Runs and improved quite, quickly. My first was 18.30 and by the end of the year I was doing about 17 minutes. I was then back with my parents doing the Park run up at Barnet and, the Barnet & district club’ saw me there and I joined the athletics club there but, I had not had anything on my mind or thought of doing that before, but because of that I joined them in 2015 and it went from there really. ”Did he suddenly appear to get a breakthrough?
“It has been steady progress with a kind of a few peeks. It was probably when I first joined Highgate Harriers back in 2019 I had a few breakthroughs then.”
Did he think it was the strength and the quality of the runners from that club to train with was the important thing?
“It definitely helps. When you are training with people faster than you, it just pushes you on a bit more. You see how they train and the bit they put in and what it takes to succeed, It rubs off on you. When I first joined Highgate it was mainly Roger Poolman that I was training a lot with. That year he went from low 14’.s for 5000 to below 14 the next season. I was always just behind him. Just before Covid I got 14.08 in Armagh (Feb 20th on the road). I felt then I was on another breakthrough then there was lockdown and I had a couple of fallow years really—Post Covid and coming out of the lockdown I had another couple of breakthroughs’ and, this year I hit another level and ran 28:53 in the English 10k’s Champs and ran 28:50’s. That was with Jacob Allen (a close 2nd), who then joined Highgate in 2021 or so. Since then, we have both trained together. He lives over in Finsbury Park and I live in Highgate. As we are quite close in distance, we do a lot of easy runs together as well (Jacob Allen holds the Highgate club 5000 track record (13:43.75).
Alex certainly found he was a reasonable half marathon runner?
“That was last year when I did a couple of half marathons. The Paddock Wood half. I was really doing that just to test out the distance as I had not done a half marathon since I was at University in 2014. Was it then, after the Paddock Wood half, he felt he was really getting somewhere!?
“ Exactly; After that I felt good and ,on the back of that I was selected to run for England in the Copenhagen Half Marathon and I got another PB with 63:28 and so I knocked about a minute off my Personal Best.,”
He ran 2:15 for the marathon in London; that must have given him a feeling he was very close to good international class marathon running?
“Hopefully! “
Now only just 30 Alex remarked “I have got a few more years left in me!”
He added “ With Highgate I think, I have made friends for life”