On Monday 8th, Ben Smith came to Skipton and ran his 161st marathon in 161 days. He’s doing 401 in total!
I’d planned a route which meandered round Skipton for 7 miles, giving him a flavour of our winter runs, then headed out to Embsay before returning to Skipton briefly and then taking in Carleton, Cononley and Bradley.
On the day Ben was joined by Ann-Marie, Ricky, Simon (Keighley and Craven AC) and I. Chris and Paul started and for the first 7 miles we were joined by Wendy and Pin. Paul supported throughout on his bike and made sure that the sun almost came out in the second half.
Paul was also instrumental in arranging the meal at Keelham Farm Shop too. A stint as social secretary in the offing?
To borrow a footballing cliche this really was a run of two halves. The first 13 miles saw Skipton at its glorious rainiest but we were welcomed by clear (if not exactly bright sunny) conditions after our stop at Keelham.
At the time this was the hilliest (but not toughest) route to date. We have to concede the toughest honour to Penzance, and now with runs in Burnley and heading into the Lakes we will now hand over the hilliest baton too.
Despite all the hills Ben ran all the way up Grassington Road in perfect ‘end-of-handicap’ fashion.
The work that Ben is doing for his 2 charities – Kidscape and Stonewall – is amazing. You can read his full story here but do you need to know more than, every morning from the 1st September 2015 to 5th October 2016 Ben wakes up and runs a marathon.
If you wish to donate it’s here, and if you want to join Ben in these parts again he’s at Settle on 31st July, Keighley the next day before doing 2 in Bradford and 2 in Leeds.
