David Bedford

David Colin Bedford OBE (born 30 December 1949) is an English former long-distance runner, whose athletic career spanned the early 1970s. Post-retirement, he served as race director of the London Marathon

He represented England at the 1974 British Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, New Zealand, finishing fourth.

Bedford was a five-times British 10,000 metres champion after first winning the British AAA Championships at the 1970 AAA Championships and then winning the title every year from 1971 to 1974.

His later career was hampered by injuries, principally achilles tendonitis, believed to have been caused by his high training mileage. He never ran the great marathon of which many fans thought him capable. He did run the first London Marathon in 1981 but only as the result of a bet. He had been in a nightclub the previous night where David Coleman had remarked on how unwell he looked.

In January 2004, Ofcom's Content Board ruled that The Number had breached rule 6.5 of the Advertising Standards Code, by caricaturing him without permission. However, it declined to issue an order banning advertisements in question on the grounds that a ban would be disproportionately damaging to The Number compared with any harm to the feelings or reputation of David Bedford suffered as a result of the advertisements.

In 2004, Bedford crashed the launch of a new 118 118 TV ad campaign. Photos of Bedford being removed made the covers of The Times and Financial Times.

Bedford was president of the Road Runners Club from 2003 to 2006.

Bedford now hosts the Radlett Rotary Fun Run every year.

In 2011 Bedford received an honorary doctorate from Middlesex University.

Runner's World described Bedford as "a key architect" of the 2012 Olympic Marathon Course.

Bedford was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to athletics and charitable fundraising.