Five Ribble Valley families run TWO marathons in shared driveway to raise over £1,000 for charity

The Chestnut Crescent families live around a shared drive way and one of the families initially had the idea to run laps around the perimeter of the driveway until they had run the equivalent of a marathon to keep fit and pass lockdown time. From there this grew into a fundraising event and they dubbed it "Barrowthon".

The families involved were: Lisa and Phil Collins and their eight-year-old sons Samuel and Thomas; Justin and Janine Brown with daughters Molly (21) and Daisy (12); Jim and Karen Pugh with children William (10), Thomas (14) and 17-year-old Isabelle; Pete O'Hagan and son Daniel (12) and Ian Poole and his son George (19).

Speaking about the fundraiser, Lisa Collins explained: "We chose to fundraise for Derian House Children’s Hospice because it has a place in our hearts after it supported the Brown family 15 years ago in caring for their son during a life-limiting illness. Molly Brown is a newly qualified nurse and did this on her day off from A&E. We worked out 18 laps of the driveway was one mile, and so needed to run 472 laps to have run the equivalent of a marathon. Each family an an hour time slot to run so we maintained acceptable distance. We started at 9am and cheered each other on from our own houses to keep the required social distance. When we got to the third family we realised we had already done a marathon! We were having so much fun we decided to aim for two marathons. Around 3pm we had achieved 944 laps between us, which was our two marathons. After that we were ready for a beer or two in our own gardens!"

She added: "We had a fantastic day. It was such good fun and we had great support from passers by, neighbours, family and friends. The children involved really got stuck in. We were really thrilled at how much we have raised for this wonderful cause. My son, Thomas said: "It was a good experience, everyone was amazing. We had fun doing it and we raised lots of money, more than we thought. We ate an Easter egg to give us energy!” While his brother Samuel added: "We were meant to do one marathon, but ended up doing two! One of the funniest people was Ian running dressed as a sumo wrestler. I was the family champion!”

Combining online and cash donations, the families have raised more than £1,000 with donations still coming in.

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