Marathon on the Leeds & Liverpool

MARATHON runner Gavin Griffiths will be tacking his 23rd marathon on 26 miles of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal towpath.

This will be his 23rd out of 27 he hopes to run within a calendar month and will take place on Tuesday 8th May between Leeds and Skipton along the canal towpath, Alan Tilbury reports.

Raise money for type 1 diabetes sufferers

26 years old Gavin has been running marathons in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland since the 13th April, starting by running from Margate to Broadstairs in Kent, all to raise money for the fight against type 1 diabetes.

He was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of eight, and his current trek, totalling 655 miles, is part of his bid to raise £10,000 for research into the disease.

For the Leeds & Liverpool marathon he will start from Snaygill around 9am and expects to arrive at the Carnegie Stadium in Headingley, Leeds, between 4pm and 5pm.

Sponsorship

He is running with sponsorship from some diabetes-related companies, but mostly people in the diabetes community are helping him by providing transport and accommodation, as well as helping to plan his routes.

The athlete will have a rest day in Leeds before completing his target of 27 runs, finishing it all off in London at Parliament Square.

His networking campaign aims to encourage others to open up about their condition and to publicly share stories and to help raise cash for the recently founded worldwide ‘DiAthlete’ programme he had founded.

Destroys insulin

Type 1 diabetes occurs when the body’s immune system attacks and destroys insulin-producing beta cells, meaning the pancreas stops producing insulin hormones to manage glucose levels in the bloodstream. A person diagnosed with type 1 diabetes has to manage every detail of their body, from what they eat to how they exercise, to maintain good health.