In the early 1980s, Joe Pringle, a teacher at St. Mary’s College in Wallasey, had the notion to start a running club called Arrowe Roadrunners. He also had the desire to organise various races at different locations on the seafront of Wirral. Following races on the beach at Hoylake, the promenade at New Brighton and the embankment at Moreton and Leasowe he settled for the Wirral Seaside Runs starting from Leasowe Lighthouse and finishing at Harrison Drive. This was pretty much the same race as is run today. Joe always had a band of helpers including his wife Ann and several students from St. Mary’s College and so was born the Wirral Seaside Runs in 1985. This coincided with the boom years of running and marathons and the turnout at the races always exceeded 100 and even as much as 315 for one race.

In 1990 Joe and Ann had a major career move and left to teach in Saudi Arabia. The organisation was taken up by Roy Fisher, a friend of the Pringles. Roy had helped at many of the previous races and so knew what to do but didn’t have a regular band of helpers. Help was recruited from relatives, friends and members of Pensby Roadrunners, a local club which Roy ran with. Roy set about consolidating the race series especially as the boom time for running was waning slightly. Several changes were introduced in order to be more efficient, accurate and less dependent on a large group of helpers and affiliated to English Athletics.

In October 2012 after 22 years and 180 races Roy decided to retire from the Seaside Runs and passed the mantle over to his Pensby colleagues Jim Fedigan as Race Director and Phil Aldag Co-Race Director and Pensby Runners volunteer helpers. In 2017 Mark Roberts and Gordon Scholefield took responsibility for the races on behalf of Pensby Runners. We have also registered with Run Britain and are Friends of Leasowe Lighthouse who kindly allow us to use the lighthouse for registration.