Superfit dad "completes Birmingham" by running along city's 8,000 streets

Express & Star

A superfit Brummie has 'completed Birmingham' after running along every one of the city's 8,000 streets.  Nigel Beecroft, 60, set off on his epic 2,500-mile trek two years ago after becoming bored with his daily running route.  He started jogging every morning and evening and mapped his progress with fitness tracking app Strava.   Nigel, from Harborne, completed his final streets to clock up 7,998 last Friday (17/10) before celebrating with a pint in his local pub.

Transcript

00:00My name is Nigel Beecroft and I'm from Harbourn in Birmingham. I took on a challenge to run every

00:06single street and cul-de-sac in Birmingham. I've always been into running, I really enjoy running

00:12and after running the same routes for years and years, last January, January 2024, I bought a

00:21running magazine, I was on a long train journey and there was an article that caught my eye in

00:26there called Become a Local Explorer and it was advertising a website called City Strides,

00:33which basically maps your runs onto any city in the world really. So I thought, yeah, being a resident

00:40of Birmingham, I thought I'd give it a go. I started doing a few runs in my immediate area and I soon

00:47got hooked and thought, yeah, this is a challenge, I'm going to go for it. So yesterday, 16th of October

00:532025, so 20 months later, I finally did the final leg of my challenge. So yeah, I'm one of very few

01:03people that have run every single street in Birmingham. I met some really, really interesting

01:08people. I mean, when you're normally just running around the, you know, running along the canal or in

01:13your local park, people don't generally bat an eyelid. But when somebody sees you running up to the

01:19end of the street and back again, they kind of stop you and say, you know, you're lost. During

01:24the challenge, I thought, am I really going to continue with this? I mean, the run in itself

01:28was not the biggest challenge. It was logistically trying to get over to the other side of Birmingham

01:34to do a run, for example, to drive over in full traffic. But yeah, I'm really pleased now that

01:41I've managed it. What surprised me about Birmingham is how hilly it is. I run up some absolutely killer hills,

01:47especially in the sort of north side of Birmingham. I just didn't realise how, you know, how many hills

01:53I've encountered. And when you're doing every street, you tend to be going up and down, up and down.

02:00So yeah, but on the plus side, got some really, really good views across the city.

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