AS the battle for Commonwealth Games selection begins, one man who knows already that he'll be there is John Schofield.

John has enjoyed a distinguished career in athletics administration since being a prominent founder member of Blackburn Road Runners in the mid 80's.

While he is still active in the club, he is probably best known by runners elsewhere for his computerised race results service.

John developed his own programmes to cope with a complex variety of events, and in recent years has been increasingly involved in multi-events like duathlon and triathlon. One of his contacts, John Lunt, the organiser of triathlons at Windsor and Salford has asked John to be a member of his crack crew at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester this summer.

He is to be a zone manager with responsibility for marshals, facilities and crowd control over a section of race route. With events such as the marathon, triathlon, road biking, mountain biking and race walking all taking place outside the stadium it will be a full time job and John will spend 12 days living in the Technical Officials Village.

Wife Bernadette jokes about John taking his summer holidays in Manchester, but she'll be there too as part of the timing crew at the triathlon which closes the games on August 4th.

Local athletes can reap the benefits of John's organisational skills this summer by taking part in a new Friday night series of trail races in Witton Park.

Over three different four mile courses, they are on the 10th May, 14th June and 12th July. At each fixture there will also be a two mile junior race. The new races mean that Blackburn Road Runners are extending their menu to five races this year, with the Europrint 10K on August 18th and the Blackburn Duathlon on October 6th.