A DOCUMENTARY is being filmed about the life of legendary Accrin-gton runner Ron Hill.

The 75-year-old, who has not gone without his daily run for more than 49 years, was followed by a film crew from Manchester for the upcoming independent film, Time To Go.

Shot by film and media graduate James Copson, the film is self-funded, and will tell the story of Accrington-born Ron as he appr-oaches 50 years of non-stop runn-ing.

James said: “The film is about him as a person, and his achievem-ents, and his story. It’s about how long he can continue running.”

James, 24, said he was looking for ideas for a film when his mum, a keen runner, mentioned Ron, who is also a clothing entrepreneur and still runs 25 miles a week.

James said: “Ron Hill was only the second man ever to break the two hours and 10 minutes barrier in a mar-athon, and he represented Great Britain on a number of occasions, including the 1970 Commonwealth Games.

“As if his sporting achiev-ements were not enough, he had much more to offer to the sporting world and pursued an entrepreneur--ial path too, pioneering the use of synthetic materials for runners.”

James and his film crew will continue to document Ron’s runs until at least December, when he will have been running for half-a-century.

He said: “That will be a big part of our film, which we hope will be finished this time next year.”

Ron Hill said: “This is a young guy trying to break into film, and he appr-oached me, and I said I would help him where I can. We did some filming for about three hours, and it was freezing.

“My hands were froz-en and my quads were sore, and he came back and said the weather was poor and we need-ed to do it again. I said he better get used to filming from the hip.”

Creative business dev- elopment manager at York St John Univer-sity, Jenny Hall, said: “This is an exciting project, and one which we hope further fund-ers will step forward and support,”

For more details about the documentary, visit www.anattic.tv