Educating Yorkshire star to race Leeds 10k

EDUCATING Yorkshire’s inspirational English teacher Matthew Burton has caught the running bug and is set to tackle this Sunday’s Asda Foundation Leeds 10K.
Matthew Burton (left) and fellow Educating Yorkshire star Jonny Mitchell with race mascot Tommo the Tortoise at the official launch of the 2014  Leeds 10kMatthew Burton (left) and fellow Educating Yorkshire star Jonny Mitchell with race mascot Tommo the Tortoise at the official launch of the 2014  Leeds 10k
Matthew Burton (left) and fellow Educating Yorkshire star Jonny Mitchell with race mascot Tommo the Tortoise at the official launch of the 2014 Leeds 10k

Mr Burton – one of the stars of the 2013 BAFTA award-winning Channel 4 documentary – was among a 60-strong team of staff and students from Thornhill Community Academy who took part in last year’s event to raise money for the Jane Tomlinson Appeal.

He will run the Leeds 10k again as part of his training for this year’s Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon on October 11.

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He said: I hadn’t done that much running before last year’s 10K but I did enjoy it. I always find the start of any run a bit of a struggle but it is a great stress buster and I do like it, in a masochistic sort of way.

“There was a great atmosphere at last year’s 10k and I am looking forward to taking part again.”

Mr Burton is familiar to the millions of viewers who followed Channel 4’s fly-on-the-wall series.

In one memorable episode reminiscent of the film The King’s Speech, Matthew helped one of his students, Musharaf Asghar, overcome a crippling stammer to deliver an emotional address to a leavers’ assembly.

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The ninth annual Asda Foundation Leeds 10k, organised by Jane Tomlinson’s Run For All, will start on Vicar Lane at 9.30am on Sunday and finish outside Leeds Town Hall.

On Saturday, hundreds of youngsters will head to Leeds Dock to take part in the free-to-enter Arena Group Leeds Mini and Junior Run, one of the region’s biggest charity running events for children.

The free-to-enter event includes a 1.5km mini run for children aged three to eight and a 2.5km junior run for youngsters aged nine to 14.

There will be a four-page pull out on the Leeds 10k in Monday’s edition of the Yorkshire Evening Post.

For more details and to sign up for any of this weekend’s runs, go to www.runforall.com