Richard Bebbington, the Mayor of Ashby, has completed his 12 Marathons in 12 Months challenge, in Aid of Wishes 4 kids. His final one was London, Sunday 23rd April, completed in 3 hours 52 minutes. Progress to date

Celebrate Richard's year as the Mayor by joining him at the Ashby School for a Civic Concert. Tickets availble from Davids of Ashby.

 

Ashby Market Street Collection 9th July 2011, £313.93 15th Oct 2011, £250.47 Tesco Collection 3nd March 2012, £355.00 4th March 2012, £411.00 Thank You!!

Richard Bebbington is no stranger to sporting challenges. He has ran the Ashby 20 on many occasions and the London Marathon twice. With his wife, Angela Conibear, Richard has also trekked to Everest Base Camp and cycled from Lands End to John o Groates. With each event being totally self funded Richard and Angela have raised many thousands for a local charity, Wishes 4 Kids. Richard's next challenge, 12 Marathons in 12 Months, will also be totally self funded and any money raised will go to Wishes 4 Kids.

 

To date Richard has completed 11 of the 12 marathons! With just one remaining, The London Marathon, it is looking very likely that the challenge will be achieved. The marathons completed to date were at Buxton, Telford, Skegness, Dovedale, Nottingham, Leicester, Rutland, Luton, Gloucester, Belvoir, and the Ashby 20 (+6.2). Each one has been different and each one has been hard in its own right. Buxton, The White Peaks Marathon, followed the Tissington Trail, up the dale north of Parsley Hay, where it does an about turn then takes a left fork to follow the High Peak Trail. Going along the Cromford canal, the finish line was at Cromford Meadows. Telford, The Holly Challenge, was a much smaller event, following a private road around a loop 33 times. Everyone here were so friendly, offering plenty of encouragement. The Skegness Marathon, The Seabank Challenge, was a race from Skegness to Boston following the grass seabank all the way. The Dovedale Dipper certainly lived up to it’s name. Starting and finishing at Hartington, Derbyshire, it followed an underlating cross country course along the Dovedale Valley, up onto the Staffordshire Moorlands, before crossing the Manifold Valley. With 3966 feet of ascent, map reading, and stiles to master, this was the hardest marathon to date.

Nottingham, the 5th marathon, initailly ran alongside the half marathon. Starting at Victoria Embankment, both the half and full marathon ended back at this starting point after 13 miles. As the half marathon runners had reached their goal, 13 miles still remained for the full marathon runners. The last 6 of these appeared to be against the strong winds. This proved to be very difficult.

Luton, marathon number 8, was mentally hard as it was around the same course 3 times. Seeing those 20 mile markers early on was played games with your mind! The weather so so nice for November, quite warm in fact. This helped me to gain a respectible time of 3 hours 53 minutes. Once again the weather in January for the Gloucester marathon was extreamly un-seasonal, a little breezy, but nice for the time of the year. Similar to Luton Gloucester was mainly around a single countryside track, 3 times.

Between marathons I'm constently training, either in the gym or clocking the miles up on the road. One good thing with this campaign, I can eat as much as I like!!!!!!!!!!!

We will endeavor to keep this site up to date after each marathon.