Kev Campbell’s ‘humble enjoyment’ of hard work inspires

Sunday 19th April 2026

Photo by Bobby Gavin

When Kevin Campbell burst onto the scene winning the British and Irish Masters in November 2024, you would be forgiven for thinking he was a seasoned cross country runner.

In fact, it wasn’t just his first ever cross country race, it was the first time he’d ever donned cross country spikes.

The whispers around the course were: ‘Who is this guy? Does anybody know him?’ as if to prove how new he was to the scene.

Fast forward to the Lindsays West District XC Champs that year where Kev landed an individual silver and then on to the Big One, the Lindsays National XC, where he won an individual bronze medal at the age of 37.

The whispers had become shouts! ‘Go on , Kev!’

On the Senior Men’s podium for the Lindsays National XC in 2025 (Photo by Bobby Gavin)

Not content with cleaning up at each major cross country race, he began the 2025 road season in a similar style.

He went on to place second at the Tom Scott 10 Mile Road race (which incorporates the Scottish 10 mile Championship) finishing ahead of Callum Hawkins in a well fought out, windy race! . Is it ever not windy at Strathclyde Park?!

With the road season firmly underway, Kev placed third at the Manchester Marathon in a time of 2.17 (which bettered his previous best of 2.33 in London 2017).

The calendar year of 2025 also saw Kev gain his first Scotland call-up for the Half Marathon in Antrim. A bout of ill-timed Covid meant his run, whilst still creditable, wasn’t what he called his best. Despite this, 11th overall and 1st Scot home in a time of 1.05.32 was a fine run indeed.

His 2017-2024 marathon times shows quite a gap – so what happened in that time?

Dealing with some injuries, Kev maintained his fitness with ‘a lot of’ indoor bike, building up mileage for a few, of course successful, Ultra Races. Second place at the Kielder Ultra, a completed West Highland Way race and finally first place at the Tweed Valley Ultra in November 2023 allowed him to keep the miles high and maintain a base fitness ready for his debut cross country race.

Then, among his first road races in seven years, he successfully went under 30 minutes for 10km for the first time.

So, looking back, when he burst onto the scene winning the British and Irish Masters as mentioned at the start, it wasn’t a fluke. It was an accumulation of many hard years of training, injuries, setbacks and, finally, a breakthrough.

Photo by Bobby Gavin

So here we are in 2026 where the year began with a win at the Run Through Newcastle 10k in a PB of 29.19 and a course record.

The cross country season began and ended with a single appearance at Falkirk, where Kev placed ninth and was part of a strong Cambuslang Harriers team who earned Team bronze.

Whilst the single cross country appearance didn’t quite hit the desired mark, a big fat 10k road PB certainly made up for it as the following week he won the Trafford 10k in another PB of 28.49.

As a result, he currently sits 14th on the all-time Scottish list for both the 10k and 10 Mile.

The cross country and 10k races were all part of a wider master plan. That being a selection for Team GB at the World 50k Championship in New Delhi in India.

Kev had been building the mileage steadily to race his first ever road ultra and his debut for Team GB. Whilst training for a 50k alone might seem like enough of task, add in having to shift the circadian rhythm to avoid jet lag and travel fatigue, heat training, cooling strategies to beat the heat (think iced bandanas and headbands ) and battling the Dehli smog.

Kev finished sixth (just behind Henry Hart who finished in fifth place). The two Scots finished inside the existing Scottish 50k Record, set previously by Hart, in respective times of 2.48.32 and 2.48.52. And in doing so landed Team Gold for GB – a great debut for Campbell!

Quite the achievement for 2026 you might think!

Kev on GB and NI duty at the World 50k Champs

So what’s next? Kev has his sights set on lowering his Half Marathon and 10k PB, all going well he’ll shoot for a new PB at the Valencia Marathon in December.

With family commitments and full time work(which involves significant travel), Kev doesn’t have the luxury of time. He has been known to post runs around service stations to fit them in and navigate unfamiliar cities and towns at the crack of dawn.

He is not sponsored and funds his training, race travel and entries himself. For any sponsors reading, he likes Puma Fast RB- Nitro Elite, Asics novo blasts, Adidas shorts and Maurten gels and electrolytes. The sub elite life doesn’t come cheap!

It might seem like running has come to Kev naturally, but he came to running ‘later’ in life. There was no junior section for him, no coming through the age groups. He joined the army at a young age and ran for Law & District pre and post army. He then joined Cambuslang a few months before the win at the British and Irish Masters XC.

Kev is coached by Tony O’Brien of TRS coaching.

Tony says: ‘The biggest compliment I can give to Kev is that he oozes authenticity in everything he does.

‘His humble enjoyment of the work it takes to improve is an inspiration, his relentless nature to find a pathway when obstacles come along just to do what he loves, which is to run(fast).

‘I’m the luckiest coach because he asked me to help him along the way and all in our coached team improve because he’s a part of it.’

Dream team!

So all eyes on what comes next. Big things incoming no doubt. At age 38, Kev knows he doesn’t have age on his side but he’s willing to defy his date of birth as long as physically possible!