A RUNNER whose plans to take part in the Manchester marathon were dashed because of the lockdown has still managed to complete the 26.2 mile run - round and round her front garden.

Hazel Kerrison, 32, of Sutton Upon Derwent, near York, who wanted to raise money for the Alzheimers Society after her Wilberfoss grandad Syd Hall recently died from dementia, said she just couldn’t put things on hold and so decided to run the same distance by doing 970 laps of the garden.

Now she’s planning two more runs -first a virtual Yorkshire’s Three Peaks challenge, to be achieved by climbing her staircase 765 times to simulate the 2142m climb and then running/walking 23.5 miles in her garden for the distance, and later a 4-mile run every 4 hours for 48 hours.

Hazel said that as marathons were cancelled, anyone with a charity place either had to put fundraising on hold or find alternative ways of fulfilling their pledge.

“The Alzheimer’s Society runs a support line to help those living with dementia, and with so many people now cut off from their family, friends, even carers, its services are in more urgent need than ever before,” she said.

“The first event I had this year was Manchester marathon on April 5. This was in theory a simple one to replicate.I am fortunate to live rurally so to have a larger garden and few neighbours, but it was still so much harder than I had expected.

“I had been aiming to complete Manchester in less than 5 hours, but the added psychological pressures of doing such small laps resulted in a far slower time of 5 hours 32 minutes.”