Chris Cawthorn from Trailfinders in Cambridge is running an incredible 100 miles along the North Downs Way in August to raise money to enable us to offer more activities to our Unique Feet rare disease community group. This is an incredible feat and we are truly humbled by his efforts and generosity.

Chris tells his incredible running story “I never really intended to run this far (does anyone?) but after doing my first marathon in Hong Kong back in 2013 I realised that I wasn’t particularly fast, but fairly good at going slowly for a long time! Since then, I’ve completed 2 road marathons, with a third coming up in the Edinburgh Marathon on 29th May, and five ‘ultra-marathons‘, which is anything over a marathon, including two 30 mile, a 40 and two 50 mile races. These photos of me are at the start and end of the South Downs Way 50 mile race, Easter 2016, which took 9 hours and 17 minutes. I also did 50 miles across the Lakes last summer – that one took 11 hours and 52 mins!

The race itself traverses the North Downs through Surrey and Kent and while not mountainous, is continuously hilly and 90% off road. We’ll start at 6am Saturday morning and while the cut-off is not until Sunday at midday, I’m aiming to finish in under 24 hours at 6am Sunday. The night time section, when you’re already 75 miles in, is supposed to be particularly tough…..gulp. All the hills added together total around 10 000 feet of elevation gain – that’s around two-thirds of Mont Blanc!”