Coronavirus: Student runs five charity marathons in five days

A student ran five marathons in five days to raise money for a mental health charity.

Joey Higham had said he would complete between one and five runs depending on how much people pledged.

But his £600 fundraising target was smashed almost immediately, meaning he was committed to all five runs.

The 22-year-old University of Exeter student, from Loughborough, has ended up raising more than £9,000 for the charity Mind.

Mr Higham said he decided he wanted to help the charity when he read about a New York doctor who took her own life after helping to treat Covid-19 patients.

"It highlighted to me is that no-one is immune to the pressures that are cracking off around us," he said.

"The idea of this was that everyone is running their own marathons at the moment, but the important thing to know is no matter how long your marathon may seem, you're not running it alone."

Mr Higham ran the same 26.2-mile route looping around a playing field in Loughborough on five consecutive days from Wednesday to Sunday.

The student - whose longest run prior to the challenge was a half-marathon - completed the first marathon in just over six hours but his final two runs both took more than 10 hours to complete.

He said it was only the thought of the money that had been pledged that kept him going.

"I knew running five marathons was going to be hard, especially with no real training beforehand, but I never quite knew how hard it would be," he said.

"It sounds like a cliché but without all the support and the meaning behind the whole thing, it just wouldn't have been possible.

"I just about managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Now it's over I plan on staying horizontal for a while."

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