Barclays Training Manager runs the Chennai Marathon

Craig Spark, Training Manager at Barclays, and his colleague Mike Lamb took on the challenge of raising money for the people of India.

Read on to find out what inspired them.

Chennai Marathon – by Craig Spark, Training Manager, Barclays.

“For the last six months I’ve been working out in Chennai, India. While I was there, my colleague, Mike Lamb, and I walked to the top of St Thomas Mount (about 800m above sea level). Upon reaching the summit, we discovered a small organisation that provides food and shelter for people who have absolutely nothing. We decided that we would like to raise some money to help those less fortunate – in India you can get a basic meal for 35 rupees, about 40p!

While at the gym one night, we decided to raise the money by completing a marathon. However, India’s heat at this time of year was reaching 60 °C (around 140 °F) on a daily basis, so doing this outside in the blistering heat was a ridiculous notion. Coupled with the fact that neither of us were particularly fit enough to run 26 miles in one go, we decided to split the marathon over 4 days using only 2 pieces of equipment in an air-conditioned gym, a treadmill or cross-trainer.

Lots of people got involved and many battled on with blisters and other injuries. For one reason or another, not everyone was able to finish what they had committed, but Mike and I agreed to make up the miles!! We ended up actually completing 2 extra marathons between us, 52 miles more than we had anticipated.”

Craig concluded: “As a group we have completed 12 marathons totalling 314.4 miles, lost over 5 stone, and raised over £450 for the cause – that’s 1,125 meals!!”