A 29-year-old man from Banbury is taking part in the Morrisons Great Birmingham Run on Sunday 18th October in an effort to complete a 333.05 mile running challenge, and raise money for SANDS, the stillbirth and neonatal death charity. Tom Venner, an automotive executive, will run the last of his 17 half marathons on 18th October, and the penultimate running event of a total of 25. Tom decided to take on the challenge after his close friends Kat and Simon Philpott’s daughter, Milly Florence, was born sleeping on 21st October 2014.
Tom converted Millie’s date of birth into inches – 21,102,014, which translates into 333.05 miles.
“My close friends were going through an extremely difficult time and it was really hard to know what to do; Other than support there is very little you can do, I just wanted to do something really positive for them, that would make a difference and allow the charity SANDS to continue helping other families like them” Tom explained.
Tom has always been sporty but had never committed to any form of long distance running. Over the course of his challenge, he has managed to improve his half marathon personal best from 2 hours 48 minutes to 2 hours 13 minutes, with every expectation to get even closer to the 2 hour time over the coming events.
To date, Tom has completed 16 running events and has nine remaining, including a 100K Ultra Marathon – an average of one per week.
