ANDY HOBSON – running for small music venues – Runner’s World, Jan 2026 issue
There were probably fans who travelled from further afield to watch Sam Fender’s concert at the London Stadium on 6 June, but none who got there on foot. Andy Hobson set off for the Olympic Park show from his home 250 miles away in Leeds on 31 May, running seven ultramarathons in seven days to raise money for the Music Venue Trust. The charity, which helps to keep grassroots music venues open, is also supported by Fender himself, who added £1 to the cost of all his tickets to go directly to small venues. Was the gig good enough to justify the blisters? ‘Yes, absolutely!’ enthuses the 34-year-old police constable.
The work of the MVT meant that Andy had options when he tried to finish each day’s run at a small venue (apart from the penultimate day in Barnet, where he opted instead for his favourite restaurant – Greggs). He began the trek at Brudenell Social Club in Leeds and arrived in London via Sheffield’s Leadmill, the Hairy Dog in Derby, SoundHouse Leicester, The Lab in Northampton and the Crooked Crow Bar in Leighton Buzzard.
‘I wanted to show that there are so many beautiful venues out there,’ he says. ‘If you’re willing to pay 150 quid for a gig in a stadium, why not check out what’s close by for 10 or 15 quid? You might find a new artist that you love.’ Andy practises what he preaches. On his Instagram page he has shared a photo of himself with a baby-faced Ed Sheeran, who he saw playing the 500-capacity Cockpit in Leeds before Sheeran’s debut single came out in 2011. He’s soon off to watch an American death metal act at the Leeds University Stylus, who may be less likely to play a headline arena tour in the future, but what ultrarunner could resist a band name like PeelingFlesh?
Thanks to the excellent taste of his parents, who got him into The Beatles’ Rubber Soul album when he was a small boy, Andy has been a lifelong music fan. Running came much later. He tried to get into it for the first time in March 2023 and struggled to do two laps of a football field. ‘I never weighed myself but I know I was up to a 38” waist,’ he says of that time. ‘Mentally I was really struggling.’ Outside work, he would either stay in bed with his PlayStation or visit his parent’s caravan near Scarborough, where he would drink heavily on his own and sit on a cliff edge. At work, he was told he was not fit for duty and signed off for two months. ‘One day I turned up and my sergeant sent me home again. He said: “You’re not coming back til you’ve sought some help.” I was a broken version of myself, not finding joy in anything.’
His GP offered him antidepressants, but after working with a counsellor he decided that something else would help more. ‘As a child I always loved moving, adventuring, falling out of trees, kicking a football. I wanted to get back to that childlike state and find the love of being outside again,’ he says. ‘I would try to run as fast as I could, for as long as I could, until I forgot for a while about those feelings of not wanting to be here anymore.’
His mileage increased quickly. By the autumn of 2023, he decided he wanted to do something for the men’s mental health charity Movember, so ran a total of 400km in November including a 4x4x48 – the David Goggins-conceived endurance challenge that requires a four mile run every four hours for 48 hours. He then devoted 2024 to raising money for another mental health charity, CALM, running a marathon a month for the entire year.
This year his charitable focus is the Music Venue Trust. The UK’s grassroots venues were hit particularly hard by the Covid lockdowns, and even in 2024 one closed down every two weeks. They may have less of a broad impact on society than the mental health organisations that Andy has also supported, but he says that live music is one of the main things that got him through his toughest times. In August he ran 150km in two days between 25 of London’s small music venues, then had another big running day around the music landmarks of Manchester. His efforts earned him a place on the shortlist for JustGiving’s 2025 Outstanding Commitment Award.
‘I don’t run to do races or get fast times. I’m running to make a difference beyond myself in whatever shape that may be,’ he says. ‘It’s not about medals – it’s more about the conversations I can start around these things that are important to me.’
Having gone for so long keeping his struggles to himself, now he wants to share his story. ‘I think pain is power,’ he says. ‘When I talk about it now, it isn’t with a sense of sadness – it’s with a sense of gratitude. I needed to go through all those stages to get to where I needed to be.’
Instagram: @hobboruns
