An Eastcote couple travelled to every single London Underground station in less than 24 hours, in preparation for their London Marathon mission of raising money for a cancer charity close to their hearts.

Donna Morley, 28, and Gary O’Connor, 29, who both work on the underground network, are “looking forward” to running the marathon to raise their target of £3,600 for Clic Sargeant, the UK's largest cancer charity for children and young people.

Gary's six-year-old niece, Brooklyn, was diagnosed with kidney cancer in August 2015. After a four-month hospital stay, an operation to remove her kidney and months of chemotherapy, she is on the mend, back to school and enjoying life.

Mr O'Connor, a Central Line track engineer, says taking on the marathon is “much easier” with their cause in mind.

He said: “Clic Sargeant really helped my sister when all this was going because she had to give up work and was constantly at the hospital.

“Financially, it's quite hard to cope when you have to pay for hospital car parking and when you're not working.

They were so good to her, really helped her out so she could be there for her daughter and helped through the tough time. That is the reason we're doing it.

“I don't think I could do it if I was just doing it by myself, but knowing that I'm doing it for a good cause and knowing it's going to help the families obviously makes it a lot easier.

“I know I’ll never, ever feel the pain of what (my niece) did when she was going through it so it's not hard to do really.”

Gary OConnor took part in the 'tiring' challenge for his niece

'We have a high target so we got creative'

Just weeks before the 26.2 mile marathon, the pair visited all 270 London Underground stations on Wednesday (April 6) in a bid to raise the cash needed to take part in the race.

Donna, a train station staff member, found a basic route online so they could complete the challenge, which saw the pair pass through every stop and running in between the different lines.

Friends and colleagues were asked to pick their favourite station and donate at least £5 for the cause.

She said: “We have a high target so we got creative with how we got donations.

“The challenge means passing through every station in a day.

“The route I found meant we ran from Ickenham station to West Ruislip then later, Morden to Wimbledon .

“We were quite lucky on the day in that there were no problems on the underground.

“We got the first train at Chesham station at 5.15am, so we got a taxi up there at 4.30am. We finished at Heathrow Terminal 5 at around 12:30am.

“It was really tiring actually, towards the end of the day we just wanted to get it over and done with!

“We raised £415 alone on that day so it was really good, we're really, really happy.”

At the finish line: The challenge ended at Heathrow Terminal 5

Looking forward to the London Marathon

Donna, who ran last year's marathon is looking forward to the race, and says the London Underground challenge was a good warm up.

She said: “The furthest we ran between stations was only about two and a half miles, but it helped from an endurance perspective, because you just have to keep going.

“Gary said he'd much rather do the marathon than doing that again!

“Both of us have had a few injuries along the way so I'm a lot more nervous than I was last year.

“We'll get around it, it doesn't matter how we do it, if we're a bit slower that's fine. The day has such a nice atmosphere, the crowds are amazing and you can't help but enjoy it so we are looking forward to it.”

The couple have so far raised £2,000 of their £3,600 target. If you'd like to donate or find out more about their fundraising, visit their JustGiving page .

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