Peter Jakeman: 1949 - 2019

England Athletics are saddened to report that Peter Jakeman, who won an award for his special contribution to athletics and running at the South West regional volunteer awards presentation in Exeter in September, died from his brain tumour.

Peter had continued to coach runners from all standards with dedication, support, and encouragement throughout 2018 despite being told in December 2017 that he had a brain tumour. He had an operation in December to remove this and was told it was a grade 4 (the worse you can have) and was not given long. After the operation, he then had another setback in that he had a stroke that stopped all movement on his left-hand side and right leg. He could not stand or move his left-hand arm and he is left-handed.

In October 2017 he ran Chester Marathon in a sub 3:28 and two months later was in a hospital bed with no movement. By March 2018 he had been able to walk few metres but still no movement in his left arm. The Yeovil Town Road Running Club took him to their track sessions in his wheelchair every week and then to the main club night on Tuesdays. He coached from his wheelchair and completed training programmes for Half marathons and Marathons for club runners and anyone else that came along.

Since 2000 Pete had been an active member of the Yeovil Town Road Running Club, undertaking many roles including Treasurer 2007 to 2014, Run Leader, Race Director, regularly marked courses for races, and did risk assessments. He had completed England Athletics courses in Leadership in Running Fitness, Coach in Running Fitness, Risk Assessor and Traffic Management. On completing his coaching qualification in 2016, he planned and supervised two coaching sessions a week for the Club, one of which was on the track. He wrote and supervised training programmes for individual Club members. He also assisted other Club members with primary school cross country races.  He was an excellent runner in his age group and was selected to run the Marathon for England in Chester in 2017 but did not run due to the brain tumour diagnosis.