In the last hours of 2022, a Briton achieved his goal for the year: to raise a million pounds for the fight once morest cancer by running 365 marathons in 365 days.
Gary McKee, 53, ran his 365th marathon of the year in the winter rain on Saturday, marking represents a total of 15,330 kilometers, received by a small group of people who went to support him not far from his home.
This father of a family with three children and who lives in Cleator Moor, in the northwest of England, reached his financial goal a few hours later, reaching during the followingnoon of the last day of the year the sum of one million pounds (1.13 million euros), for the benefit of the Macmillan Cancer Support association. The counter kept going up on Sunday.
“Wow,” he tweeted on Saturday followingnoon.
This isn’t McKee’s first challenge to charities, who has already cycled across Brazil, climbed Kilimanjaro and rowed the equivalent distance across the English Channel. In 2017 he ran 100 marathons in 100 days and in 2021 he ran 110 in 110 days.
This year he increased the level considerably, for which he needed 22 pairs of sports shoes. Many anonymous runners and even sportsmen, such as English rugby coach Kevin Sinfield, joined their runs, often in the mornings before working in the followingnoons at a nuclear waste treatment plant.
“The streets were full of people, it was raining but everyone was clapping and shouting,” he confessed to the BBC following the arrival of his 365th marathon of the year. “I will always remember.”
McKee indicated to the specialized website ‘runnersworld.com’ that he was not interested in eventual recognition of his achievement as a record. “It’s not the records that count but helping people.”
