CHARITY: Alan Boothroyd – a freak you must support

The best thing about Alan Boothroyd, in my opinion, is that he has no conception that what he is currently doing is genuinely remarkable.

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I don’t know anyone else crazy enough to take on a 40 marathon over 20 days challenge, but I’m sure many people who do ridiculous stunts in the name of charity often do so to further their own cause alongside raising the money. And there is nothing particularly wrong in that.

They may crave attention, might revel in seeing their name in print and look forward to the deserved back slapping when it’s all done. All of that would be justified and admirable.

But Alan Boothroyd is a freak and I mean that in the best possible way.

He is a quiet man that balks at public attention and the media requests that follow as a result of putting your body on the line for a good cause. He even had to have his arm twisted to do a lap of honour at the Huddersfield Town match because he didn’t see what all the fuss was about.

In short, Alan Boothroyd is a rarity. He is someone that loves what he does best, likes a challenge and would happily do it with no one ever knowing.

He appears most content when others talk on his behalf and allow him to slip on his running shoes and disappear into the countryside.

He was driven to raise money for his beloved Huddersfield Town’s Keep It Up Campaign for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance because a family friend was saved by the service provide by those wonderful yellow helicopters. As a consequence, he wanted to raise £50,000 and realised that a few people would need to know that months of training involving many hours a day, serious self-sacrifice and then 20 days of heroic solitary battle are involved in bringing him to the edge of beating a challenge he’s wanted to take on for years.

I’ve never met the man they call Booby. Since writing these blogs and helping to raise awareness of his efforts I’ve had a number of telephone calls with him. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me saying that he’s not the easiest interview. As a writer you want your subject to give you great lines, add to the drama with their quotes and make your life easier by painting the pictures with their own words.

Alan Boothroyd speaks as he runs. Step-by-step, nothing fancy, but we always get there in the end and it’s been a real privilege being involved in chronicling his journey.

There were many doubters. People knew he could run, but could he pull this one off?

Some felt he’d bitten off far more than he could chew. 

When I first spoke to Alan he told me that he would get to John O’Groats whatever happened. That if he needed to he would crawl the course. It was when I heard that single-minded determination that I started to believe. And what a journey it’s been.

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Like many of you, I’ve followed his every tweet. I’ve saved his photos for the blogs and worried when he hadn’t tweeted for a few hours, often forgetting that mobile signals in some of the more remote areas are few and far between.

As someone who once signed up to do a marathon and was put off by a minor calf injury when I’d got my training up to a measly three miles I have no concept of what it takes to run mile-after-mile, day-after-day, often with only your own thoughts and road signs telling you that there are fifty miles still to go. And then to do that again the next day and repeat it for twenty consecutive days is beyond most normal people’s comprehension.

He won’t ever be drawn to tell you this himself, but Alan Boothroyd is a legend. Running from Lands End to John O’Groats in 20 days at the age of 52, with snow, hills and exhaustion threatening his every step is quite simply heroic. 

And he won’t grab a microphone and tell you to give generously. As I have said he’s not that kind of guy.

But forsake something this week and chuck in a few quid to his collection please. This is a crazy fella, doing something remarkable for a tremendous cause.

So please support him and make sure he realises that he’s done something very special indeed.

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by JAMES BUTTLER

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