Barking Road Runners race into the New Year with charity run

Seven intrepid members of Barking Road Runners decided to see in 2021 by completing the Phoenix virtual New Year chaser.

Their goal was to run one mile every hour on the hour starting at 10pm on New Year’s Eve until noon on New Year’s Day - a grand total of 27 individual one mile runs, one for each time zone around the world. 

 Some runners chose to stick to the same one-mile route for most of the event, while others kept motivated by running the miles across as many different routes as possible.

The seven runners all completed the final mile in Barking Park, running in Tier 4-compliant ones or twos.   

A minimum requirement for the challenge was six miles and this was completed by Andy Hiller who had work commitments preventing him doing more.  

The 27-mile runners were Nabeel Akram, Cristina Cooper, Robert Courtier, Alison Fryatt, Amanda Heslegrave, Belinda Riches and Faye Spooner. 

The team raised more than £5,000 for various charities including Orphans in Need, Alzheimer’s Research UK, Saint Francis Hospice, Postpals, Shelter and Richard House children’s hospice.