A TEACHER from Harwood is running hundreds of miles to raise money for charity.

Phill Walmsley is putting himself through the paces to raise money for Cancer Research.

Not content with just completing one running event he is running every day for a year including completing a number of brutal challenges.

These include the Hell of a Hill challenge and the Three Peaks Challenge culminating with a 200 mile run across the country next August.

He said: “I have been a keen runner for the past seven years doing ultra-marathons and a couple of iron mans but I have never done it for charity, I just did it for the challenge. I lost both of my grandparents to cancer and some close family friends have been diagnosed recently.

“You come to terms with it over time but when someone else is diagnosed it brings it all back, so it just felt the right time to do it.”

Mr Walmsley, who was head of maths at Mount St Joseph Business and Enterprise College in Bolton before he took up his current position as Deputy Head at Burnley High, set up a running page on Facebook to encourage others to get into the sport.

He said: “I started the group to encourage people to start running every day for 24 days even if it’s just for a mile.

“Then I thought I could expand on that and do a bigger challenge. It has been great doing the page because it has encouraged people to keep going with their running even at times when they didn’t really want to.”

In addition to the daily runs, the latest challenge that Mr Walmsley undertook was the Hell of a Hill, described as one of the toughest marathons in the world, where runners are challenged to complete five marathons in as many days — completing six laps of the area around Rivington Pike.

However, due to his teaching commitments he was not able to do it with the rest of the runners’ last week do did it the week before.

He said: “So I did it on my own totally unaided, there were no aid stations or marshals. It was a really weird experience.

“The course is ridiculous anyway but it made me more determined to do it.”

The 36-year-old is now continuing with his daily runs ahead of his 200-mile run across the country in August.

He said: “It is the journey of the challenge that keeping me going. I’m raising money for a very worthy cause and it’s a personal challenge for me.

“The 200 miler is an unknown, I’ve done 100 miles before but never this long, the last one took just under 24 hours but who knows what will happen this time.”

To sponsor Mr Walmsley visit www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Challenge-24