A BROMSGROVE teacher who has run 26 marathons and more than 70 half marathons in memory of her dad is set to tackle a Norwegian night marathon dressed as a polar bear.
South Bromsgrove High School’s head of PE, Gill Punt BEM, will join the Polar Night Marathon – Norway’s biggest winter race – on January 4 to raise funds for Cancer Research UK.
Gill has been asked to be an official ambassador for the event which is the latest in a string of marathon challenges and fundraisers that have spanned 26 years and helped to raise more than £1.9 million for Cancer Research UK.
Gill has been raising funds for the charity since her dad Mike died of bile duct cancer in 1999, aged just 56.
In 2016 she ran the London Marathon dressed as a polar bear, breaking the World Record for the fastest time a marathon has been run in a full-bodied animal costume.
Now she hopes her Arctic Circle challenge in the same costume will help hit her £2 million fundraising target for Cancer Research UK. But she admits she still ‘doesn’t enjoy running’.
Gill said: “I will keep going because there’s still such a long way to go until we get to the ultimate finishing line – a world without cancer.”
“Dad’s cancer came out of the blue when he was still young.
“He just went bright yellow one weekend and went straight into hospital to have tests. A terminal diagnosis followed very quickly.
“We’ve tried to be very positive as a family since then and that’s why I do what I do – to try and get something good out of a bad situation.”
Gill says her fundraising has snowballed since then and in 2019 she received the British Empire Medal for her fundraising feats.
Paula Young, spokeswoman for Cancer Research UK, said: “What Gill has achieved is nothing short of incredible.
“We can’t thank her enough for her unswerving commitment to the cause and we want to wish her the very best for the nigh tmarathon.
“Without people like Gill putting themselves out there we simply couldn’t continue to fund our research. Amazing supporters like her are helping us to go further and faster in the fight against the disease.”
Visit https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/gills-giving-page-1424 to donate.
