Man's 'crazy' marathon challenge for friends

A personal trainer running 30 marathons across Europe in 30 days to raise awareness of motor neurone disease (MND) has said the idea is "absolutely crazy".

Mike Humphreys, 33, from Hedon in East Yorkshire, set himself the mammoth task after losing friend Carl Giblin to the condition in 2013 and currently helping another, Craig Eskrett, who was diagnosed in 2023.

The challenge gets under way on Friday in Barcelona, Spain, and he is hoping to finish on 2 November with his last marathon in Hull.

He said he wanted to come up with an "outrageous enough" idea to highlight MND "because it's an awful disease and it currently has no cure".

Mr Humphreys admitted it would be "tough", as he had only been training for "two weeks solid".

He added: "I just felt I had to do something. I felt a bit helpless, but I wanted to try and do something to support [Craig].

"I've never done back-to-back marathons, let alone 30 back-to-back.

"So, I'm just excited to get the first one out the way and see how the legs feel, ready for the day after."

Mr Humphreys, who is running solo and without a team, is driving across the continent by himself and said he was determined to overcome any "hurdles that come in my way", including injuries and traffic to run the marathons consecutively in each country.

He added: "As soon as the marathon is finished in Barcelona, I will be trying to refuel as fast as I can and then jump back in the van and head to Andorra.

"It's just going to be ridiculous.

"I'm going to come across injuries, niggles, blisters. Everything's going to be thrown at [me] along the way, but it's just trying to overcome and adapt and make sure [I] can get to the end of this challenge."

Mr Humphreys said the feat came as no surprise to his family and friends after conquering nine other physically enduring fundraisers since January, including an Ironman contest in Copenhagen and the Leeds Marathon.

"I think the risk of injury and damage to my body is quite high, but I do feel this needs to be a big challenge to grab as much awareness for MND as possible," he said.

"I'll be crawling these marathons if I have to. There's no stopping me. I'll be doing every single one, that's for sure.

"The biggest worry I have is traffic. The logistics side of things worries me more than actually running the marathons."

Listen to highlights from Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.