Mum’s the word as Gregg sets off on 223-mile run

A Guardian sports writer is to run more than 200 miles from London to Liverpool to raise money for nurses that cared for his mother.

Last Tuesday, Gregg Roughley kicked off a 223-mile run from Hackney in East London to Liverpool, to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support, whose nurses cared for his mother after her breast cancer operation.

Roughley, 29, has taken on what he describes to be ‘the ultra challenge’as a way of saying thank you.

And while he has been training intensively for the 20-mile-a-day slog for months, he admits: ‘I’ve never been fit enough to do something like this.”

He will be joined by his childhood friend, Adam Yates, 26, who will cycle alongside to offer supplies, moral support and, when times get tough, he said ‘offer some military-style motivational techniques”.

Roughley said his mother Sylvia, 56, was ‘humbled and proud’of the trip, and that he was pleasantly surprised to have already surpassed his sponsorship target of £2,000.

To sponsor Gregg, you can visitwww.justgiving.com/greg groughley. He will also be writing a daily blog about his painful progress at www.guardian.co.uk/sport