Phil Hewitt, the chairman of the Festival of Chichester is going to talk about the marathons he’s run in the past at a special event during this year’s festival. Hewitt will be joining the Talks at Six programme on June 29th and will be in the studio from 6-7 in the evening. Phil Hewitt is also the current Sussex Newspapers group arts editor and he’ll be at the studio which is located at New Park Centre.
Although he ran his first marathon back in London in 1998, he recently finished his 31st and he believes that the most recent one was the most significant to him. He was stabbed during a violent mugging in South Africa in 2016 and the Worcester Marathon, which was held in May, was the first marathon he’d ran since the incident. According to Hewitt, after he was stabbed, he was sure that he was never going to run another marathon again but something in him was also telling him that running would be his path back to a normal life.
Hewitt claims that he really doesn’t know why he loves running as much as he does but he also knows that it helps him to keep things balanced and also helps him to regain a proper perspective which, in his opinion, is what he needed after the stabbing. However, he also promised not to talk too much about the gruesome incident during the talk and that he will instead focus on the amazing things that he’s achieved thanks to running and all the many places he’s gone thanks to running.
He mentions the New York City Marathon as the main highlight of his career. He believes that nothing will ever be better than that. However, he points out that Tokyo and Marrakech were also quite amazing and that he also had plenty of unforgettable experiences while running in Dublin, Rome, Flanders, Berlin and Amsterdam. However, as fun as it always is to run in London, he believes that when it comes to the beauty of the route taken by the marathon, Paris is definitely ahead.
Hewitt also mentioned that during the talk, he will discuss two books that he’s written i.e. In The Running and Keep on Running. Entry will be free and you can book a spot on the Talks at Six website or you can drop in.