Eight marathons in eight days all without leaving the kitchen

East Grinstead's Doug Bewley took on the challenge of ten marathons in ten days to raise money for charity.
Last day of the challengeLast day of the challenge
Last day of the challenge

A long time supporter of Jigsaw South East, a charity which provides bereavement support to children who have lost a close family member normally a parent, he decided set himself a challenge to raise much needed funds.

He said: "I was acutely aware of the impact that Covid-19 was having on its fundraising through the cancellation of mass participation events like the London Marathon. When I became aware of the 2.6 Challenge which was a campaign set up by the organisers of the London Marathon I thought what I could do which would make a real difference. Knowing that one marathon would not do it. This is how I settled on a goal of ten marathons in ten days on a treadmill in my kitchen."

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Doug didn't train for the challenge deciding on the Friday that he would take part on the Sunday.

DougDoug
Doug

"I do run occasionally and was due to do the London marathon but I had not been training because of a couple of injuries earlier in the year.

"The challenge started off relatively easy on day one, I had run the Brighton marathon in 2018 without any training so I knew that if I kept a steady pace to finish in four hours 30 minutes I would be ok on day one.

"Day two onwards was the unknown and I really struggled at the end of the second day coming down with early signs of hypothermia after I finished due to poor hydration and nutrition. Day three went well and I felt strong again as I slowed the pace down to a four hour 40 minute pace."

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He added that the real problems started on day four when a shin injury meant he had to run even though he was in pain and this continued until day six when he suffered the same injury on his other shin.

"This really started to become a problem as I could not use my left leg to compensate for the injury on my right. On day seven I debated long and hard about not starting because of the pain but I completed a painful five hours 20 minutes.

"On day eight when I woke up I could not stand up until about one hour before I was due to start and I knew that I should stop, but encouraged by the support and money we were raising I started what was the most painful nine hours and 30 minutes of my life.

"It turned out that the pains in the shins were stress fractures. I had to stop at this point as I could not walk for a further three days."

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Doug completed eight marathons and has raised more than £7,000 for the charity.

"I felt extremely disappointed and like I had failed as I could only do eight marathons, however now I have had some time to reflect the money raised will do amazing things for the charity and the exposure for the charity has been amazing with people I don't know contacting me asking how they can get involved with the charity and help raise money for them.

He added: "I first became aware of them after my wife started to work for them when she returned to work after having our Twin Boys, being a new father it immediately hit me how important the work they do is. It is awful to lose a parent no matter what age you are and a child is not equipped to process this level of loss."

It seems the challenge hasn't put Doug off running or doing something similar again.

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He said: "I would like to train for a similar event to see how much I could achieve with the right preparation, giving me the opportunity to help support Jigsaw again."

For more on the charity visit www.jigsawsoutheast.org.uk

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