FEATURE MIKE HARRIS PROFILE
It still feels like only yesterday. The memories of wheeling the Motobecane bicycle from the garden shed to the local station in Widdrington to catch the 7:45am train to Kings Cross, stopping overnight in Waltham Abbey, before travelling on to Reading.
No bike box - not invented yet - and eager expectation for an event advertised in the Daily Mirror, with renowned distance runner Brendan Foster gushing how the sport had captured the imagination of the United States and was ready to become the next big thing in endurance.
Memories are a funny thing. Mike Harris's reminiscences of the first triathlon ever held in the UK are as crystal clear as those of his final competitive outing this summer, the Northumberland Triathlon. Both events held on 5 June. Only 40 years apart. “It was a good time to bow out,” Harris recalls. “Five miles from where I live, a scenic route on roads that are relatively traffic-free and a run around the lake. It's a lovely event.”
Harris has an understated warmth and wealth of knowledge to pass on from decades in sport. A half-century of training diaries and an autobiography, , will attest to his dedication. “If I went through the details, it'd bore you rigid,” he adds with a wry smile. Yet it truly
