By Gabrielle Swan
OVER £14,000 has been raised in memory of a Bangor man after two of his friends took part in a 100km run from Newcastle to Bangor last Friday.
Tackling the herculean feat was Jack Wyse, from London, and Bangor man, Michael Elborn.
In addition to running the 100k last Friday, Jack had also been doing a 1,000 day challenge, running 5k a day for over two-and-a-half years, to raise money for Leukaemia and Lymphoma NI (LLNI), a charity dedicated to supporting research into blood cancer.
The charity was chosen after the death of Simon Robinson to lymphoma in 2022. He was only 31 at the time of his passing and had been living in Hong Kong at the time working as a physiotherapist.
Physically fit with a passion for running, Simon’s sudden diagnosis and passing six weeks later shocked his friends and family.
Jack decided he would tackle 5km a day for 1,000 days, with the final day coincidentally falling on LLNI’s 60th anniversary diamond gala ball at Titanic in Belfast. Both Jack and Michael were invited to attend after their 100k running efforts from Newcastle to Simon’s memorial bench in Bangor.
Accompanied by some of Simon’s friends and family the pair were blown away by the support they received on the day. They both ran from the early hours of Friday morning until the evening.
Said Jack: “It was great, it was a beautiful day. We started in Newcastle at 2.30am, then finished it 15 hours later and we have £14,144 so far and still counting. It was all in honour of our friend Simon, who passed away about two years ago, he was 31 years old.
“It was really great to see everyone out to help Micael and I. It was a beautiful day, emotional and physically quite exhausting.
“I started on the first of December 2021, running 5km every day and after a while I realised that 1,000 days was something which was quite achievable.
“It just so happened that when I set up the Justgiving page for that 1,000 day challenge, the charity got in touch with me, asking me if I would like to come to their anniversary gala, just by chance, that anniversary meal was day 1,000, which was very serendipitous.
“We ran it on day 1,000 of me doing 5km everyday, it was two-and-a-half marathons on that Friday, so a longer run than usual.”
Jack explained that Simon had a very aggressive form of cancer. “It was very quick, and that was the story we heard when we went to the ball that evening. He spent the last four years of his life in Hong Kong, he loved that place.
Michael also praised the support the pair received during their run on Saturday.
“Some of Simon’s friends from Hong Kong were over and they helped us at the beginning with support cars, they are ultra marathon runners,” he said. “It was nice to have some people there with that experience.
“Me and Jack ran pretty much throughout the night. It was really nice because people would join us for part of it, they would tell their own stories. His mum, Susan, and his two brothers Peter and Philip, were there too, along with his nieces and nephews, so it was all very emotional,” added the Bangor man.
Additional donations to their JustGiving can be made at https://www.justgiving.com/team/bangorbali
