Student defies pain to complete epic charity run

A PhD student said he ran "through pain" for five and a half days to finish a challenge to raise money for charity.

Richard Stennett, who is also a teaching assistant at Loughborough University, ran about 186 miles (300km) to the top of hills throughout the Peak District in six days to raise funds for Kidney Research UK.

The 30-year-old said he took on the challenge in support of his friend Sam Viravong and Mr Viravong's mum Manoly, who was awaiting her second kidney transplant.

Mr Stennett initially set out to run 348 miles (560km) but was forced to reassess his target after experiencing knee and ankle pain about 50km into the challenge on day one.

He said the injury was "frustrating" as he had done longer, more intense, training runs, and it meant he could not "keep up the pace" to complete the initial aim of the challenge.

"I was running through pain for the first couple of days, it was quite severe. I think I've got quite a good pain tolerance, but that was kind of on the edge of my tolerance," he said.

Mr Stennett told the BBC that friends came to the Peak District and completed sections of the challenge with him, which he said gave him a "massive lift".

He started the challenge at about 05:00 BST on 7 July, and finished on Saturday afternoon, raising more than £5,000 for Kidney Research UK.

"It was a massive surprise that we got to the amount that we have, we had no expectations going in," he said.

"Seeing all the messages on the JustGiving page has been really lovely, we've had people from the US and Australia send money - quite a lot of them, we don't even know.

"And there's some really heartfelt messages of people saying 'my sister donated her kidney' or 'my son needed a donation', and it's just stuff we didn't really expect and it's given the whole thing another layer of significance for us."

Mr Stennett decided to raise money for Kidney Research UK as his friend's mother Malony has an autoimmune condition, which meant she had a kidney transplant when the pair were teenagers.

Mr Viravong - who is planning on becoming a kidney donor - told the BBC it was "really heartwarming" that Mr Stennett had decided to fundraise for Kidney Research in the challenge.

He said: "It means the world, first off the basis that there was no expectation for anybody to do anything for me, my mum and our family.

"Especially something of this magnitude for him to want to dedicate it and raise money for Kidney Research UK, thinking of my mum's kidney disease and struggle at the moment."

Lucy Sreeves, executive director of Kidney Research UK, previously said the challenge was "extraordinary" in scale.

"He's taking on this huge physical feat in support of a friend's family, and in doing so, he's helping to raise awareness of a disease that affects millions," she said.

"Kidney disease is often invisible, but its impact is devastating. We're incredibly grateful to Richard for shining a light on the need for research and for inspiring others to take action."

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