A great award for a truly great runner

I was delighted to hear today that former World record holder for the Marathon, Steve Jones, who is a friend of mine has been added to the newly created 'Welsh Hall of Fame'.
Im sure a lot of you will remember Steve, but for those who may not he broke the World record for the Marathon in 1984, in Chicago, where he ran an unbelievable time of 2hours, 8 minutes.
A year later he went onto win the London Marathon, and also run a career best time of 2 hours, 7 minutes, again on his favourite course in Chicago.
I met Steve a few years ago when I had the opportunity to train out in Colorado for a period of time. He lives, trains and coaches out there full time now, in the city of Boulder, near Denver. When Steve was at the peak of his training and racing career, he would make the jouney from Wales to Colorado twice a year to train at high altitudes. Having spent some time training with Steve in Colorado it was clear from the start why he made it to the top in the sport of running. His dedication, desire and work ethic was evident as soon as I met him. I was lucky to beable to train with his current crop of runners out in Boulder, and found out first hand the training routines that Steve himself did as an athlete, and also what he is coaching to some of Americas finest young athletes. A typical days training would begin at 6:30am, where the group would assemble for a 30 minute run. Following a period of warm up exercises, the main session of the day started promptly at 7:15am. This was usually an Interval session such as 4 by 5 minutes with 2 minutes recovery or 6 by 800m on the track with only 1 minute recovery.
The workout would be completed with another steady run of about 20 minutes. We would finish the morning training by about 8am and then meet again in the evening for the days second session. This would either be a light 5 mile run or a Weights session. All this training was done at high altitudes in Colorado, which you can imagine makes the work out twice as hard as training here in Wales at sea level. Steve talks fondly of his time racing up in North Wales in such events as the Welsh Cross Country Championships, so it is good that someone who is part of the history of Welsh athletics has been given this highly respected award.