Lad with terminal brain cancer desperate to break world record before he dies
A man diagnosed with terminal brain cancer has set himself the goal of breaking an incredible world record before the end of his life.
Iain Liam Ward has dubbed himself the 'King of Chemo' and set himself a mighty task to occupy his remaining days.
His goal with the remainder of his life now is to smash the world record for the most amount of money a person has ever raised for charity.
On his website, he writes that aged 31 he was diagnosed with stage three brain cancer and said he was given about five years left to live.
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The money he's raising will go towards cancer research and he's got a whole set of fundraisers in which he's seeking to raise millions of dollars, pounds and euros for charities looking into new ways to beat cancer.
One of his major fundraisers this year has been cycling across the US, starting from New York City and pedalling towards Los Angeles.
His current goal is to raise over £2,300,000, the most money ever raised by a person running a marathon, and if he can hit that target he's planning on taking aim at the much bigger target of £32,796,155 which was raised by Captain Sir Tom Moore during the pandemic.
Iain has his sights set on running 52 miles in the 52 countries and territories of Europe across the span of 52 weeks, otherwise known as a whole year.
That's 2,704 miles in total and the equivalent of running a double marathon a week for a whole year, and after that the 'King of Chemo' has no plans to stop.
He said he'd be taking a bit of a rest after his marathon effort before doing it all over again in the 50 states of the US, along with a week in Canada and Mexico too to round out the 52 weeks of a year.
At the moment Iain is raising money to hire a documentary team who would travel with him on these years of running, as he believes that would massively boost the awareness of what he's doing and in turn lead to a significant increase in donations towards cancer research.
He has a GoFundMe for what he dubs is 'Ultra Marathon World Tour' which you can donate to here, and he's also laid out plans for what he's going to do after spending two years running around Europe and North America.
Iain plans to circumnavigate the globe 'by manpower only', meaning he'd be swimming the English Channel before cycling to the Himalayas, running through those and then kayaking his way through the islands of Indonesia down to Australia.
From there he plans to turn around and head for China, head up north and cross the Bering Strait to Alaska, head down to Argentina before turning around and going back up South America via Brazil before journeying up the east coast of the Americas until he's in the Arctic Circle.
Then he's planning to head for Greenland, Iceland and finally make it to Ireland where he'd end his journey by running to Dublin.
Joe Harker