When the column left to put its feet up for a week, Sharon Gayter was slogging the streets of London. She still is.

Sharon, it will be recalled, is the 39-year-old Teesside bus driver turned sports scientist and physiotherapist who faces the challenge of covering a mile every hour for 1,000 consecutive hours.

Now with just five days to go, the five somnambulant survivors will end the Flora 1,000 Mile Challenge on Sunday by running the London Marathon.

Last Saturday, however, Sharon felt so good after five steady away weeks that she went the extra mile - or to be precise, ran 17-and-a-half miles in two hours 25 minutes. It puts her on course for a 3-40 marathon, and first place among the flat-out five.

"I wouldn't say that I was as fresh as a daisy, but I just felt that I needed to string something together," she says, accompanied, as almost always, by husband Bill on a bike borrowed from the event bus driver.

"It was going to be the event referee's bike but someone stole it from under his nose. They'll steal anything in London," says Bill.

Always confident, Sharon had a "nice" bet on herself at 9-2 before the challenge began. She's now 3-1 joint favourite.

"It's been far easier than I ever expected. I hope to get a new van out of the bookies," she says.

The challenge of covering 1,000 miles in as many hours was first tackled in 1809 by Captain Robert Barclay, who described the final weeks as a living hell. Sharon insists that it's been far from purgatorial.

"I've always been mentally strong, but I haven't really needed it. I expected the wall but it never came. I've never felt sleep deprivation and in many ways I'm less active than I would have been at home.

"It's just walking or running a mile and then spending the rest of the time on my backside or grabbing some sleep. I know I'm going to finish in reasonable shape, but I can't wait to get back to a normal life."

Though Bill, a long-distance lorry driver, has been obliged to pull out of the Marathon - "too many niggles, I haven't got the distance in" - they both plan to join the post-race party then return to what in their Guisborough household is normal.

On Good Friday she's entered in a ten-mile race organised by New Marske Harriers, her home club. "I'm looking forward to it," she insists. "You have to keep yourself in condition, don't you?"

An e-mail from Dan Coffey, first encountered running endlessly around Gateshead Stadium, suggests that he's not been taking life easily either.

Dan, known in ultra-running circles as The Clockwork Mouse, has just ticked up 181.88km - a little over 110 miles - in a 48- hour event around a concrete 250m track in the Czech Republic.

"Three years ago I was told that I'd never run again and two years ago I was walking with a stick," says Dan.

Now he wants to improve his distance, though it's still a British age group record. The Clockwork Mouse is 72.

As if the football world didn't suspect that everyone supported Manchester United already, here's how last week's Radio Times - spotted by Peter Drake in Newcastle - billed the Tyne Tees Television "Football Flashback" programme about Newcastle United legend Jackie Milburn. Wor Jackie, bless him, will be turning in his grave.

John Dawson, 61-year-old Hartlepool postman and much chronicled King of the Ground Hoppers - personal best, 284 football matches in a season - is in the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough awaiting a heart bypass.

Apparently there's a Teesside League pitch at the back of the hospital. "Whatever his protestations, they wouldn't let him out on Saturday afternoon to watch," says a visitor.

John's a lovely feller. We look forward to seeing him back on the terraces very shortly.

Gallows humour from a Sunderland fan: Peter Sixsmith reports that after Newcastle United signed a shirt sponsorship deal with Northern Rock last week, he and many other Stadium of Light diehards formed a queue to close their accounts. They're going to the Nationwide instead.

The piece on Keith Hopper's 70th birthday (Backtrack, March 28) recorded the fears of the former Durham County cricketer and footballer - for 22 years chairman of Bishop Auckland cricket Club - that youngsters were no longer interested in sport.

Steve Smith, self-styled old 'un, agrees. "Everything he says about the expectations of the majority of youngsters can be applied across the country," he writes.

"It's especially hard to see an ongoing conveyor belt capable of churning out future Bothams, Boycotts or Truemans."

Steve also wonders if the great Trevor Bailey would have been in the Walthamstow Avenue side which played Shildon - K R Hopper included - in the FA Amateur Cup quarter-final on February 21, 1959.

Shildon's quarter-final programme is on the desk, admits the club's surprise at being in the last eight - "not even our most ardent supporters could have visualised it" - but though T E Bailey won an Amateur Cup medal with Walthamstow in 1949 he's not on the team sheet.

Partly it may be because he was 35, partly because Bailey - known as "Barnacle" among cricketers because of his well- practised forward defensive - was with the MCC in Australia, his last Test series.

So why did Brian Johnston nickname him Boil?

* A reminder from Keith Hopper that the Bishops 150th anniversary reunion is at the clubhouse this Saturday evening. All former players will very warmly be welcomed.

The column on March 28 also reported that former Middlesbrough and Sunderland star Stan Cummins had switched from Ferryhill Greyhound to Billingham Wanderers for an Over 40s League fee of £3. Stan insists that it's not true.

"Billingham have put two and two together and made five," he says. "I'm entirely happy at Ferryhill." Apologies.

And finally...

The player who finished on the losing side for two different sides in 1990s FA Cup finals (Backtrack, March 28) was Stuart Pearce.

Readers may today care to identify the feat which Alex Stewart achieved in the third Test against the West Indies in 2000, which only Colin Cowdrey in 1968, Javed Miandad (1989) and Gordon Greenidge (1990) had previously done. Feat first, the column returns on Friday.

Published: 08/04/2003