Gary McKee is not at his first attempt. At 53, this generous and crazy Briton has already crossed Brazil by bike, climbed Kilimanjaro, rowed over distances equivalent to the English Channel for charitable causes. In 2017, he had run 100 marathons in 100 days, then 110 in 110 days in 2021.
This time, in the final hours of 2022, McKee achieved the crazy goal he had set for the year: to raise £1 million for the fight against cancer by running 365 marathons in… 365 days. . Saturday, he trotted in a winter rain his last marathon of the year, 15,330 kilometers in total, welcomed by a small crowd of supporters not far from his home.
Gary McKee running alongside his family as he completes his 365th consecutive marathon in 365 days. This man deserves it all. What an achievement pic.twitter.com/YRYiP8dqwh
— Jack Kenmare (@jackkenmare_) December 31, 2022
This father of three children who lives in Cleator Moor, in the North West of England, did not succeed in his financial goal until a few hours later by reaching the sum of the evening of the New Year’s Eve the sum of a million pounds (1, 13 million euros), for the benefit of the Macmillan Cancer Support association. The counter climbed again on Sunday.
This year, with his goal of one marathon per day, he had considerably raised the level of the challenge, which required 22 pairs of sneakers. He was joined when he ran, often in the morning before working in the afternoon on a nuclear waste treatment site, by many anonymous people or sportsmen like English rugby coach Kevin Sinfield.
“The streets were full of people, it was raining, but everyone was clapping and shouting, he welcomed the arrival of his 365th marathon on the BBC. I will always remember it”. He indicated to the specialized site runnersworld.com that he was not interested in a possible homologation of his feat as a record: “What matters are not records but helping people.”
