Two teachers from Kingham Hill School have raised over £2,500 for two charities after completing the gruelling challenge of running 12 marathons in 12 months.
In 2016 Rebecca Lund, Head of PE and Chris Larner, Geography and Economics teacher, decided to test their running endurance by participating in one marathon every month to raise money for Motor Neurone Disease Association and International Needs.
To put the brilliant efforts of Rebecca and Chris into context they would have covered over 2,500 miles in races and training between them, which was all completed around their full time teaching jobs at Kingham Hill.
Rebecca and Chris’s marathon trail took them across the UK with races in Milton Keynes, Portland, Stratford-upon-Avon, Manchester, Edinburgh, South Downs, North Downs, Gloucester, Nottingham and Walton on Thames. They even took their fundraising mission overseas with runs in Dublin and Athens.
Speaking about the reason for undertaking one marathon every month Chris said: “In 2016 I wanted to challenge myself and this seemed to live up to it. I had never run a marathon before so I decided that if I was doing all the training, I might as well run twelve! My family have previously worked with International Needs, a Christian mission and development charity and that inspired me to raise money for the brilliant work it carries out with impoverished countries across the globe.”
Rebecca added: “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this challenge, I thought choosing a marathon a month would test me both mentally and physically and it did not disappoint. There have been a good many hours of painful running over the year but the challenge has also been a really positive and inspiring one for me. It has been a very social challenge with such brilliant support and generous donations to our charities. This year has taught me that anything is achievable, it just depends on how willing you are to work for it.”
Thanks to fantastic support from their donors £2,513 was raised and will go to supporting vital research into motor neurone disease and building water and bathroom facilities in Uganda and rebuilding housing in Nepal that was destroyed in the April 2015 earthquake.