The 10th Robin Hood Marathon turned into a rain hood marathon in bitter cold undergrey skies.
Overall winner for the second year in succession was Steve Needs, of Leicester, who finished in 2hr 24min 53sec, beating last years time in 'perfect' conditions.

Needsy - He's An Animal!

When Needsy won the Leicester Marathon I was in the chasing pack, someone said hes moving away but John Offord who went on to run 2:13 a few years later, said dont bother hes just a fun runner whos going to blow up. Needless to say he didnt blow and wasnt caught.Definately a legend.

CHRIS SMITH RWA

I remember a good few years ago waiting for him to arrive at  my mates house in Melton so we could go out to a club.He arrived too late and we went out before he turned up.However when steve got to the house (a pub)it was all locked up and he thought we may still be inside waitng for him so he proceeded to climb a drain pipe and go in through the back window.However as he was climbing through the window my mates brother awoke and saw this shadowy figure(steve) tip toing through his bedroom ,at this point he got a carving knife and challenged steve thinking he was a thief.Steve had to explain in about 2 seconds flat what he was doing there.

This is just one of many incidents where he nearly had his throat cut!

Wayne Walker
OWLS AC

On another occasion he managed to talk a 'Man Mountain' out of filling in a mutual friend after the bloke turned around and caught him doing 'chimp' impressions behind his back.

Steve was also the first to my knowledge to introduce the term 'pork sword'
with respect to a certain area of the male anatomy.

Wayne Walker
OWLS AC

Steve does do an excellent bedtime story session as well as his other long list of repertoire. I was unfortunate enough to go to the lakes with him for the Fell running relay champs one dark n dismal October in 2002. In the pub he downed copious amounts of Theakstones OP & when we retired to our bunks he just started rambling n rambling on about his younger days so very long ago.

In fact he went for so long that he was still mumbling when he finished his relay leg the next day! The blokes an absolute legend & I won't hear a bad word said about the guy, underneath that coarse, callous, ugly facade there's a soft heart of gold.

If it wasn't for him I wouldn't be the brilliant runner that I am.

Andy Smith
TAC