Man raises nearly £40k for ALK+ International in 48-hour, 48-mile running challenge in memory of late partner

The partner of a 29-year-old cancer victim ran 48 miles over a 48-hour period last weekend and managed to raise nearly £40,000 for charity in her memory.

Alix Burnard, a healthy non-smoker, passed away from ALK-positive lung cancer on January 14 after living with the rare and incurable disease for 18 months.

Her partner, 35-year-old Jamie Matthews, decided to take on the endurance challenge to raise money for ALK+ International, a charity that supports ALK-positive lung cancer patients and funds for research into the disease.

He ran four miles around Greenham Common every four hours and he was joined by hundreds of supporters throughout the weekend. Each of his runs were completed within 55 minutes.

Mr Matthews said: “It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Physically and emotionally it was really, really difficult, but I managed to complete the whole challenge.

“I was only really able to complete it I think because of all the support I had.”

Several of the 12 runs took place in the middle of the night. Mr Matthews anticipated completing most of these night runs alone, but he had at least five or six runners joining him on every single stint.

On some of final runs on Sunday afternoon, he was joined by 30 to 50 people.

“So many people turned up for the runs that I had never even met before,” he said.

Sunday, April 30 would have been Miss Burnard’s 30th birthday which added to the emotional weight of the physically demanding challenge.

“One of the runs was at 12 o’clock at night,” Mr Matthews said. “As soon as it went past that point I remember turning to the people that were with me and saying it was Alix’s birthday.

“They all said happy birthday to her which was nice but it made me cry. It was hard.

“She was always in the forefront of my mind. We had cakes for everyone [on her birthday]. It was just emotionally a really tough day.”

There were also times when Mr Matthews considered throwing the towel in.

His calf went on the third run, but he was able to manage the pain, and after his ninth run, which started at 4am on Sunday morning, he was close to announcing on social media that he was physically unable to complete the challenge.

However, he was convinced by Grant Dedden, owner of CrossFit Newbury where Mr Matthews coaches, to keep going.

Mr Dedden said that CrossFit members would carry him across the finish line if they had to.

Mr Matthews thanked all the CrossFit Newbury members and several of his neighbours that supported him throughout the weekend by running with him. He was also delighted with the amount he had managed to raise for ALK+ International.

Mr Matthews said: “When I set the JustGiving page up I didn’t really know what I was going to go for.

“It defaults to £500 so I thought I’d be optimistic, hope for the best and just put a zero on the end of that so I set it up at £5,000.

“I hit that within a week and bumped it to £10k and thought I’d be really pushing my luck.”

To view the fundraising page, visit https://bit.ly/3LqLjTh

He has currently raised over £13,500 for his running efforts, but Miss Burnard’s former employer Netgear will be donating £5k on top of that, and Mr Matthews’ employer Admiral Insurance will be match funding the total raised, bringing the potential total to nearly £40k.