Some days it was just plain Freezing!

82.6 miles and £2,142 raised for Prostate Cancer UK

Peter Gardner thanks everyone who gave him moral and financial support doing his January Walk the Marathon for Prostate Cancer UK.

"At the start of the month, it was just plain freezing. Walking first thing in the morning if I could, because every day the weather threatened rain later in the day. I was very, very, lucky with the weather here in the Vale of Evesham. There was only one day in the whole of January that I had to go out on and get soaked in order to keep my promise of walking every day come rain, sleet or snow. Two other days I got wet, but mostly I managed to find a 45 to 90 minute window some time during the day to walk, and very often, as you can see in the pictures above and below, there was frost under foot but blue sky and sunshine which warmed my spirits - if not my hands and feet!"

"With such a good dry start to January, I managed to do the first 26.2 Marathon miles in the first 11 days, and so I reset my target from doing one Marathon distance to doing three Marathon distances (78.6 miles), and as my fitness improved I strode ever longer walks and went from it being a chore to being a real enjoyment. I am amazed at the number of different footpaths there are between Wyre Piddle and Fladbury. There are at least six main routes running parallel between the railway line and the river Avon and I explored many of them. The only one I could not try out was the one running along the river bank because, by the time I'd discovered that route, the cold weather had succumbed to rainy weather and the Avon had overflowed the pathways."

"By the end of January, many of the paths were so wet and dangerously slippery that I had to restrict myself to the firmer ones, particularly as the end of the month loomed closer and my need to get to the 78.6 miles target."

"I've come to enjoy walking more than I can remember and plan to keep going, although maybe not necessarily on days when it is raining all day!"

"As I got everr closer to the end of the month, I got ever closer to my £1,000 target - then a second wave of generous donations helped me break that target and with still a week to go £2,000 looked possible. THANK YOU ALL - you have been brilliant supporters and I have made it to £2,142, with maybe some more from the Tax Man for your Gift Aided donations."

Donations are open until 31st March, and you can still donate by clicking the button below: