A Liverpool marathon runner was one of the first two picked to compete with Team England's athletics squad in the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in July.
Jonny Mellor, 35, heard the news days after winning the Manchester Marathon in April, where his time of 2:10:46 nearly matched his lifetime best, and beat the qualifying standard for all three major championships this summer. For a month, Jonny and teammate Georgina Schwiening kept the news a secret until Thursday, May 5, when England Athletics announced they'd been selected for the Commonwealth Games.
The international event will be held in Birmingham from July 28 to August 8, the first major multi-sport event in Britain since the London Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012. But Jonny's route to such an elite level wasn't clear cut.
