Running man Joshua Weller is gearing up for a 49.6km run and the completion of a 496-day challenge.

He’s run 5k every day since January 19, 2019, through bad weather, illness and the pandemic, but tomorrow (Friday) he faces the biggest obstacle of the lot.

Weller, from Leybourne, was keen to raise money for Lupus UK. His granny suffered with the incurable immune system illness for 28 years and passed away in 2014. It would have been her 86th birthday this Friday, the day Joshua hopes to complete his challenge.

His granny’s house number in Ditton was 496, an address she lived at for 78 years, and it’s the number he chose to base his gruelling challenge around.

He’s close to raising an impressive £5,000 for Lupus UK across this challenge and also donations to his London Marathon attempt, which he hopes to run in October, after this summer’s event was postponed.

Weller, 21, said: “It’s been a big challenge and there was a week this winter where every day I got soaked and it was windy. I had the odd illness, nothing serious, but I have come to love running and I don’t think I will ever stop now.”

He suffered a stress fracture in a foot after tackling the 2017 Bournemouth marathon due to poor preparation. He had to walk the second half of the race.

He’ll now be running slightly longer than the 42.2k marathon distance but will have company for the final 19k. This year he’s been on placement from university at Sevenoaks School and their director of sport James Emmitt will be running alongside him.

“Hopefully he’ll get me over the line when I’m feeling weary,” said Joshua.

“I ran a marathon two years ago and I have been running some long distances to prepare. I think up to 35k I will be pretty comfortable but it will be good to have some company.”

You can visit the fundraising page here.

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