Island runner raises thousands for charity

Saturday 13 July 2019

A local man has spent the last few days recovering and counting...after his multi-marathon efforts to raise thousands of pounds for charity.

Ben Langlois completed his own personal challenge of running seven laps of Guernsey over the course of a week - which is the equivalent of ten marathons - last Sunday, and he's not far off reaching his £8,000 fundraising target.

All the money raised will go toward The Brain Tumour Charity in memory of his uncle, who passed away last year.

Despite having some doubts beforehand, Mr Langlois ran the entire distance and was encouraged along by other local runners who joined him for part of the way.

"It made it really social, good fun and really varied," he said. "Some people would organise it in advance and other people would be there on the road and come and run with me. The first two days I was mostly on my own - I had one runner each and a bit of family support - then all the other days I had at least six or seven different runners.

Pictured: Ben Langlois on day one of his running challenge.

"I listened to music when I was on my own. I wasn't really pushing myself at any stage because it was an endurance race so I wasn't stressed. I was relaxed and enjoying the scenery. It was really nice to see the coast of Guernsey and I always find with these long races the time goes really quickly. If you ask someone to run for seven hours and they're a non-runner then they'll assume that's really hard, but I find time flies."

Mr Langlois had support from a number of other people throughout the week, including family members and even his friends in China.

"I've just come from Shanghai and I've got a really good group of friends that are runners out there," he explained. "They've been doing a team challenge to support me. They would extend their training and run a bit more than they would that week, with the idea that they'll at least get 60km between them per day. Some of them pushed themselves loads. That was really nice for motivation."

The event was sponsored by Intersport, which also donated £500 to Mr Langlois' cause.

His daily times ranged between just over six hours and just over seven, and Mr Langlois managed to achieve his fastest time on the final day.

"Day two I struggled on the cliffs because it was getting quite hot and there was no shade and no wind," he continued. "I was 30 minutes slower.

Pictured: Mr Langlois received support throughout the week. 

"I wasn't entirely sure if I could do it or not. Day four was like No Man's Land for me, I didn't know whether I would get to that point and if I would be a broken man by that stage but actually it was quite a quick time and felt really good. I realised I could do it fine.

"I was really happy with my body. My muscles were absolutely fine, it was just the heel blisters that I couldn't really deal with. I'm in flip-flops for the next couple of days!"

Mr Langlois was pleased to have a supportive team behind him though: "My mum was my sports nutritionist. I had limited time so it's all about carb-loading and taking in a lot of protein after for recovery. My dad was the team medic - he was dressing my wounds every day."

On top of that, Phil Surry from Longcamps Clinic offered to give Mr Langlois sports massages during the week.

"For non-runners it sounds torturous, but I really enjoyed it all," he added. "I wasn't overly pushing myself, you get to see Guernsey, you get to meet a lot of other runners. I'm really glad I made it."