Lands End to John o’Groats

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Have no fear! It’s not me completing this epic feat, but young Matt George, running 32 ‘marathons’ (yesterday’s leg was over 30 miles) in 36 days, raising money for the Refugee Council. Mike forwarded me an e-mail about his running through Herefordshire a month ago, and those of you with some sort of attention span will have registered that fact, which was posted on the website! Inevitably, because it was involving a Tuesday and Wednesday, it was only going to be the retired and unemployed who might have shown any interest, but Matt was hoping that local runners might run some of the way with him (Hereford to Ludlow, and Ludlow to Shrewsbury) yesterday or today.

I volunteered to accompany him from Richards Castle into Ludlow, knowing that Ludlow Runners were going to provide an escort from Ludlow northwards the next day. I had a text at 12.45 to say he was in Leominster (short break), leaving in 10 minutes, so I jogged down to the Castle Inn at 1.50, in the rain (fortunately no longer torrential). Matt arrived within a couple of minutes (8mph?!). He’d already covered 26 miles that day, but still had me puffing going up the hills (I know, I’m getting old). Half an hour later, we reached Castle Square in Ludlow and his arrival was recorded, by photo, on his Facebook page, as evidence to his many supporters who have already donated over £8,000 towards his chosen charity, the Refugee Council. He has now covered 267.4 miles (plus another 30 or so today), with another 21 ‘marathons’ to go and approximately 700 miles.

He set off this morning from Ludlow for Shrewsbury, waved off from Castle Square by about 20 well-wishers, accompanied in the autmnal sunshine by 3 Ludlow Runners.

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3 thoughts on “Lands End to John o’Groats

    1. He’s on marathon 25 today (Sat Oct 1st), Newtonmore to Carrbridge; he reaches Inverness tomorrow afternoon, and is scheduled to get to John o’Groats next Saturday, with one more rest day inbetween. He’s battled strong winds, rain and also some problems with his right leg (sciatic nerve?), but managed to keep on schedule, with about 750 miles covered so far. He’s also near enough reached his target of £10,000.

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