IN THE midst of a long hard winter, notable for its multitude of viruses cutting down entire offices at the speed of Usain Bolt, it comes as a welcome change to hear of someone who's caught a bug of a slightly more positive nature.

This time last year Nick Harrison, pictured below, was, like the majority of us, a fairly sedentary type of bloke, more likely to be watching sport than partaking in it himself. Middle-aged spread loomed on the horizon.

"I was just your pretty average 28-year-old," he says. "I'd always been fairly healthy but my thirties were creeping up on me and I'd got this bit of a pot belly – I thought it was maybe time I did something about it."

Thinking is one thing. Getting up off your backside, entirely another. However, Nick had the determination to drag himself out of his Stoke home and on to the streets. In the following months he clocked up hundreds of miles as his new hobby consumed him. Previously 6ft 2ins and 17 stone, he has now shed four stone and is eyeing up the London Marathon.

On April 25, barely 12 months after pulling on his trainers for the first time, Nick will line up with 30,000 others in Greenwich Park for the 30th running the most famous marathon in the world. At this rate of progress, he could be back for London 2012 ... okay, one step at a time!

"I hope to finish in under five hours," says Nick, as he considers a course familiar only from TV broadcasts. "That would be great. But just to be taking part is fantastic."

Nick will be running in aid of Farplace Animal Rescue, a national charity which takes in not just small animals such as cats and rabbits, but also wildlife and ex-farm animals including ex-battery chickens.

Nick was always a fan of the Potteries Marathon before it switched to the Potters 'Arf. He used the slimmed down event as an incentive to start running, the Donna Louise Trust benefiting from his run last year. He is a big fan of the community feeling that such events generate – he also hopes to take part in the Great North Run – and his long-term goal is to start a running club in the city aimed at those who want to enjoy the sport in a relatively non-regimented way.

"I am ambitious about running," says the IT systems engineer, "and believe it is a good sport to encourage ambition and belief in people of all ages. My next goal after the London Marathon is to start up a running club and get some of the local youngsters, and older people as well, running, and mixing – getting them committed to achieving a goal. I feel it is a good skill in life to learn to respect and believe in yourself.

"I'm thinking about people who are just thinking about running to get fit and healthy, as well as enjoying the social side of it. Some people are put off by the thought of more organised running clubs. I want to do something separate from that.

"As you can tell, running has gripped me and inspired me. It makes you realise what you're capable of. You only have to look at me, someone who wasn't even running a year ago, to see that."