Ben Surtees-Smith challenged himself in August with a charity challenge to run 100 miles in 1 month, after many donations he quickly upped the challenge to 300 miles, including the final week of 100 miles in 7 days! Here Ben explains his busy month of running…
I knew that charities were being severely affected in 2020, and thought that I must be able to do something with my running to help! The Bone Cancer Research Trust (BCRT) was asking for people to sign up to a 100 mile challenge in August! I made the challenge a bit more interesting and after further donations, I pledged I would run 300 miles instead! I never really had a plan, I just ran what miles I could at what pace my body felt comfortable doing. I chose routes I had done before (mainly in the beautiful Bradgate Park), or just made up the route as I went along! Some days I ran 6 miles other days 17 miles. I even had two abandoned runs due to “stomach issues”! I had to be rescued by my wife and daughter who thought it hilarious! ha-ha!! Despite this, I just kept plugging away and the miles just ticked by!
During the challenge, there was also the LRRL virtual league going on (see other news posts on this website), tired legs and not a lot of motivation to run fast, I still managed to finish as the club top senior male for the 4 races I ran in! Mind blown! The miles were really ticking along nicely, and it was around 235 miles after a 14 miler that I then decided to attempt another challenge, one that I had thought about before which was to run 100 miles in 7 days! This is when the fun really started! Running two hours solid every day for 7 days can get very lonely, so whenever someone offered to run a few miles with me I snapped their hand off, well unless they were running faster than 8:20 pace! LOL! My legs were certainly beginning to suffer at the start of each run, however 4/5 miles in my legs would start to feel good and I would settle into a comfortable pace!
Donations were still flying in and I could not believe how generous people were being and that really motivated me to keep going. During the challenge, a few people (mainly my sister-in-law) had referenced me as ‘Forest Gump’ so for a bit of fun I donned my checked short sleeved shirt, trousers, and red cap and off I went for 14miles! Got some very funny looks, but also made quite a few smile! 😊
My final run of the challenge was with a few fellow Wreake Runners, where they thought it was their duty to add as many hills in the route as possible! Lol! Finishing with guys that I had started this challenge with meant a lot and I was very grateful to them getting me to 100miles!
I completed my challenge on the 30th August with a total mileage of 323miles! I ran through rain, wind, sun, heatwaves and thunderstorms and you know what… I would do it all again in a heartbeat!
I raised £1300 for the BCRT which was just incredible and so overwhelming! Thankyou to everyone who sponsored me!
The Wreake Runners club as a whole are taking on the challenge of running as far as they can across the world throughout the month of September, as part of Leicester Marathon’s ‘Run the World’ challenge, money raised goes to LOROS charity. To see how far we’ve ran (over 2000km after 1 week!, click here)