A RUNNER from Kenton hopes to have broken a world record by completing 105 marathons in the same number of days while raising money for charity.

Super-fit Neil O'Maonaigh-Lennon, of Rowland Avenue, left Brighton in East Sussex on September 10 and followed the coastline anti-clockwise before crossing the finishing line back there on Thursday December 23.

The 30-year-old teacher was aiming to smash the official Guinness world record of 52 marathons in 52 days and in doing so has attracted enough donations to exceed his £10,000 target for Cancer Research UK.

He said said: “It's been an incredible odyssey around Britain, raising money for a cause very close to my heart as I lost both my grandfathers to cancer.

“I'm very pleased to have got £10,000 and I'm hoping over the next few weeks to push the total even further: we carried collection buckets so we have even more money to count and people can still donate via text.

“I wanted a challenge, to push the boundary and go beyond the world record, and so I decided to run around our island.

“I originally wanted to do 100 marathons but that wouldn't have got me all the way around, so I chose 105 although if I had stuck to the coast completely, it would have been more like 140 or 150.”

Neil said his GPS data may not meet Guinness' strict eligibility criteria but would submit it anyway.

"The most important thing, regardless whether the world record's official or unofficial, has been raising more money for charity.”

Neil and his support team posted daily updates on his blog and social networking site Facebook, and inviting wellwishers to join him on each 26.2-mile leg of his journey.

He was inspired by the story of Canadian humanitarian Terry Fox, a cancer sufferer whose leg had been amputated but decided to raise money and awareness by running across his homeland.

However, Mr Fox was forced to stop 143 days into his mission and the cancer eventually killed him.

Neil taught English abroad for three years in the Far East during which time he ran 30 marathons in 30 days around the coast of Taiwan.

N To sponsor Neil visit www.justgiving.com/neil-o-maonaigh-lennon