A FUNDRAISER from Warwick is officially exhausted after running 40 marathons in 40 different countries around Europe.
Angus Read flew from Luton Airport to Chișinău, Moldova, to start the challenge in August and ended in hospital with exhaustion when he completed his challenge on Saturday (December 13) in London.
The challenge has taken him from the sunshine of Monaco to sub-zero temperatures in Iceland, raising more than £11,000 for Cancer Research UK in the process, in memory of his aunt, who died in 2014.
He admitted being a bit under-prepared when he started, but said he would “figure it out” along the way.
After graduating from Leeds University in June, where he studied law, Angus wanted to go solo travelling.
While the 22 year-old was working out his options, he decided he wanted to make a difference by raising money for Cancer Research during his travels.
On average, Angus ran a marathon every three days, with each marathon taking him around four and a half hours to complete.
Throughout the challenge he ran solo and slept in hostels, with friends joining him and cheering him on in Sweden, France and Belgium.
Angus first got into running after the Covid lockdowns in 2020 and has completed 50km every week in preparation for the challenge.
He had previously run two marathons in Leeds but had underestimated how how hard they would be. He did, however, get to see more of the world than he had planned.
Angus said: “I’ve been to so many countries that I wasn’t planning on going to originally, which is cool – such as Tallin in Estonia, that was a beautiful city.
“I really enjoyed Sarajevo in Bosnia Herzegovina. My favourite run was Nice to Monaco along the south coast of France – that was stunning – a really sunny day, beautiful coastline.”
By the end, he said his left knee was causing him “quite a lot of pain” and he had lots of “niggles and tweaks”.
Exhaustion was also a big problem, because of the lack of recovery time.
He added: “When I finished the challenge, my body kind of shut down in a way. I had to go to A&E and I got diagnosed with severe fatigue slash exhaustion really from the whole trip.”
He plans to take a few months off, relax and recuperate, before going to look for work in the new year.
