Nationwide chief’s lucky number

When Nationwide Building Society marketing director Mike Lazenby talks about running a campaign, you would do well to check whether he is wearing trainers.

Lazenby, a keen long-distance runner, has combined his hobby with his company’s sponsorship of England’s 2006 World Cup bid. Whenever he races, he makes sure the organisers allocate him the running number 2006.

The fleet-footed Lazenby says: “We were the first company to back the Football Association’s campaign. Any way of making people aware of it helps.”

The ever-accessible Lazenby’s next outing is the ten-mile Bupa Great South Run in Portsmouth on September 19.

Anyone seeing him should feel free to waylay him and ask him for a campaign update, or perhaps discuss Nationwide’s latest endowment mortgage rates.