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Man running 33 marathons for mum's condition

Contributed A woman with shoulder length brown hair, black glasses and a white top sits next to a younger man with short dark hair and a beard who is wearing a blue long sleeved top. They are smiling at the camera which is positioned to the side of them.Contributed
Martin Lively is running the equivalent of 33 marathons to help raise awareness of his mother's condition

A man is running the equivalent of 33 marathons to raise awareness of his mother's condition.

Martin Lively from Newmarket, Suffolk, has been running 130km (80.77 miles) every month since February while raising money for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society.

His mother Carol Lively was diagnosed with MS 20 years ago and the condition affects her mobility.

Mr Lively, who admitted he did not like to run, has so far raised more than £3,000 and is hoping to reach £10,000.

"What I wanted to do was run 130km a week but I'm not fit enough for that, so I did 130km a month because there's 130,000 people in the UK living with MS at the moment," he explained.

"It's actually gone up to 150,000 since I started, there's new figures out, so it's really prevalent."

Darren Rozier/BBC A wider view of the man with short dark hair smiles at the camera. He has a small amount of facial hair and is wearing a black hoodie with a red top underneath. He is standing outside and houses can be seen in the distance behind him.Darren Rozier/BBC
Mr Lively said he had been surprised by the number of people living with MS

Mr Lively's mother was diagnosed in her early 20s around the time she had him.

"She was relatively able bodied for 20 years while she had it but it's over the last decade or so we've really been able to notice her symptoms," he continued.

"It's a horrible disease. It's degenerative to the brain so it's difficult to get her around the house even and it affects not only the sufferer with MS but it affects their family as well."

Mr Lively has so far run 1,270km (789.1 miles) and has 160km (99.4 miles) to go.

"Ideally I'd like to be done by Christmas... it's brutal, it's intense but hopefully within three [or] three and a half weeks, we'll be there and I can throw these running shoes away and never look at them again," he said.

"It's for a good cause and the amount of support I've had off people that I've known but people I don't know who are getting behind this, it is amazing.

"The people that I've spoken to who know somebody who has MS that I never would have found out about is staggering.

"This disease is affecting people and hopefully this is raising some awareness of it."

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