SUE Yendley’s 2012 new year resolution was to run 12 marathons in 12 months – last weekend she completed that goal in Greece, reaching her target with a month and a half to spare.

“It was just a silly idea I had at new year,” the BRJ Run & Tri Club member told The Hunts Post on her return to Britain.

The final race was the Athens Classic, which follows in the footsteps of original marathon man, Pheidippides, who in 490 BC ran the 26 miles between the town of Marathon and the city of Athens to announce the defeat of the Persians.

These days there are a few more runners prepared to make that dash with 46-year-old Yendley finishing in 2,902nd.

Explaining her resolution, Yendley said: “It was 2012, an Olympic year, and I liked the idea of doing 12 marathons in 12 months in 2012.

“The race from Marathon to Athens just seemed quite a good and apt one to finish on.”

Yendley, who lives in Brampton, began her year by running the ‘Cold Christmas to Good Easter’ race, which begins in Cold Christmas Lane in Ware, Hertfordshire, and ends in the village of Good Easter in Essex.

From there she took part in further races all over the country, including the London, Brighton and Edinburgh marathons, before heading out to Greece with her BRJ teammates Roger Holliday and Frank Holmes, also pictured above.

Holliday, pictured on the left, recorded a personal best in the race, coming in 65th with a time of three hours, six minutes, and 59 seconds. Holmes finished in 3.35.07, while Yendley – who has clocked up more than 350 competitive miles this year, including the 46-mile Cambridgeshire Pathfinder Ultra, which was an extra race – clocking in at 4.20.05. “The Pathfinder was during my rest period,” she said.

Plans are already afoot for the ambitious runner’s next big adventure. As if running 12 marathons this year wasn’t quite enough.

Yendley has signed up for a new challenge: she will be riding ‘uphill’ from Land’s End to John o’Groats in August with another fellow BRJ member, Alan Hannibal, to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support.

“We’ll be doing that in the last week of August and in the first week of September,” she confirmed.

Plenty of time to recover, then.

12 in 12 in 2012

Sue Yendley’s amazing feat

Jan 8 - Cold Christmas to Good Easter; Feb 25: Belvoir Challenge, Melton Mowbray; Mar 4: Cambridge Boundaries; Mar 18: Daffodil Dawdle, Newmarket; Apr 15: Brighton Marathon; April 22: London Marathon; Apr 29 Milton Keynes Marathon; May 13: Halstead Marathon; May 27: Edinburgh Marathon; July 15: Fairlands Valley Challenge, Stevenage; Oct 27: Snowdonia Marathon; Nov 11: Athens Classic Marathon.