Running the length of the country for St Teresa's Hospice

Marc Ellis has been training for 18 months to tackle a gruelling 505-mile journey - equivalent to 19 marathons - from Land’s End to Darlington in May.

The 42-year-old expects it will take almost the full month to complete the route and he hopes his efforts will help him raise £50,000 for St Teresa’s Hospice in Darlington.

Mr Ellis had always intended to take on the challenge for a worthy cause, and decided to raise money for St Teresa’s after suggestions from friends led him to visit the hospice.

He said: “When I visited the children’s area of the hospice, and saw the pictures they drew on the wall, I walked out a different person.

“When I’m struggling, I’ll remember a picture I saw of the sun there, and that will get me through it.”

Mr Ellis, who is a factory supervisor at Darlington's Magnet factory, was a keen runner during his school years but it wasn’t until 2010 that he decided to get back into the hobby.

Two years later he competed in the 2012 London Marathon to raise awareness for kidney disease and since then he has run five marathons and is well into his training regime, having ran 200 miles last month.

He said: “You get out what you put in, and persistence and diet are key.”

“My first run was one mile, and I struggled with that.

“Now I can do 70 miles a week.”

Mr Ellis is well aware that blisters will be an unwelcome companion for most of the journey, but he is looking forward to the final leg of the run on High Row in Darlington town centre, where his friends and family will be cheering him on.

There is one problem that Mr Ellis was not quite prepared for though: “I can’t stop losing weight – I burnt off 8,000 calories last week!” he joked.

Mr Ellis’ Just Giving page can be found at www.justgiving.com/Marc-Ellis1.

St Teresa’s provides care to patients across North Yorkshire and South Durham and although it receives £300,000 a year from a government grant, it needs £2.4m annually to operate.