TRIBUTES have poured in for Marilyn Cooper, a founding member of Okehampton Running Club, who died last Wednesday.

The running club has penned its own tribute, written by club member Jane Jackson, who was a close friend of Marilyn’s.

IT was with great sadness that the members of Okehampton Running Club learned the news of the sudden passing of Marilyn Cooper, one of its most significant and iconic members last week.

Marilyn joined the club right from day one, previously having done a few local races training on her own, but soon started to improve her times and fitness with the training programmes run by the club.

In 2010 Marilyn got an unexpected chance to run her first marathon when one of the other members dropped out of their club place for the London Marathon. A bit short of training, she wasn’t at all confident that she would do justice to the place she’d been given but in typical Marilyn style she gave it her best.

The following year she ran the Great Welsh Marathon and finished in 4hr 03min securing the first of many good for age qualifying times for the London Marathon. Marilyn had been bitten by the racing bug!

She astounded people with her ability to train so hard and race so frequently without ever getting injured. Running races on almost a weekly basis, she always put in a good performance and usually came back with an age group prize or trophy.

She went on to run many marathons, finally smashing the sub-4hour barrier with an age group win in a time of 3.58.43 at the 2014 Barnstaple Marathon, very fitting for a Barnstaple-born lady.

She was aiming to eventually run all six world marathon majors, of which she had completed three, and last year completed her first Ultra marathon by running the Dartmoor Discovery. Hugely competitive, Marilyn continued to strive to improve her times and achieve personal bests at all distances.

Her dedication to training and her successes inspired both young and not so young within the club and beyond. She was always modest of her own achievements but quick to praise others for theirs and always had some words of encouragement for new runners.

Some of the more senior members only took up running at all after being inspired by her. She won the annual challenge shield for the highest female achiever an unprecedented three times and would doubtless have won it again in the future as she set such a high standard.

Marilyn was always looking for new challenges and doggedly pursued her desire to compete in triathlons by having swimming lessons, a discipline that came less naturally to her than running. At 60 years old she competed in her first novice triathlon at Roadford Reservoir where she typically won her age group. Last year she qualified to represent Great Britain in her age group at the European Duathlon Championships in 2016, a place she would have been so proud to have taken up.

Applying the same dedication to her role as club correspondent to the Okehampton Times, Marilyn spent hours trawling through results fearful of accidentally missing someone out of one of her reports, and never missing an opportunity to promote the club.

Marilyn ran her last race just three weeks ago at the Exeter half marathon where she finished in a time good enough to gain her a platinum award, the highest level of award in the club scheme.

An inspiring, gracious and lovely lady, Marilyn will be greatly missed and the club sends their heartfelt condolences to her family.