The amazing Oliver Williams ran a marathon in his back garden, dressed as a toilet roll raising over £3,500 for his local NHS charity.
Dad-of-one Oliver, 34, of Barry, completed the 26.2 mile run in his back garden on Saturday, April 11, and has so far raised £3536 for the NHS via Cardiff & Vale Health Charity’s ‘Make It Better’ fund.
Mr Williams, a specialty registrar in public health, working for Public Health Wales, and formerly a Cardiff and Vale UHB physiotherapist in the Vale of Glamorgan, was raising money for the charity which is supporting patients and staff during the coronavirus outbreak.
Mr Williams was due to run the London Marathon on April 26, with a previous personal best of 2 hours 36 minutes, but his home run effort took him 6 hours 50 minutes.
Daughter, Martha, two, and wife Jenna Williams were on hand to provide back-up and support – and he had “some nice jam on toast at halfway on the move.”
Mr Williams said came up with the idea after seeing other people do marathons in their gardens online to raise money.
He said: “I usually do a lot of running and was due to take part in the London Marathon this month before the outbreak, so I knew I was in shape to do a marathon.
“I haven’t managed to run much since the lockdown started though due to work commitments and periods of isolation.
“We’ve been really busy working on covid-19 at Public Health Wales and my wife, Jenna Williams, is a doctor on ward at Neath Port Talbot Hospital treating people with the virus, so we’ve been seeing the effects and extra demands on healthcare resources from all sides.
“Our daughter was ill a few weeks ago so we had to self-isolate for 14 days, her test was negative though.
“There’s such a strain and demand on staff at the moment that I think anything we can do to raise money and support our health boards at this time can make a big difference and help people cope, which is why I did it.
“I’ve done quite a few runs in fancy dress for different charities before now so felt I needed to wear something silly to make it more interesting and give people a laugh,” he said. “Obviously toilet rolls have been surprisingly popular of late – so it seemed quite fitting.
“Mentally it was the hardest challenge I’ve done.
“I didn’t anticipate how slow it would be.
“I was measuring it on my GPS watch, and about five minutes in I realised how long it was going to take and wasn’t sure I was going to manage it.
“My best marathon time is 2 hours 36 minutes – at this point in the garden marathon I wasn’t even halfway.
“A ‘lap’ up and down my garden is only about 0.03 miles so I had to around 1800 laps overall.
“My garden is also on a slope with a set of six steps halfway along it, which really hurt the legs.
“The other challenge was the 180 degree turns at each end of the garden.
“It was hard to get any rhythm going and it hurt the knees and ankles turning so much.
“There was also a slight issue with an archway though a hedge that we have, which it turned out wasn’t quite wide enough for the toilet roll to fit through.
“It ended up taking me 6 hours 50 minutes, which is over two hours longer than I’d previously ever run for.
“It didn’t help that it was such a hot day either.
“My emotions probably went through excitement, regret, exhaustion, and relief.
“It really helped having my wife and daughter in the garden for most of it.
“I think my daughter ran further than me during the first five minutes giving us high fives and wondering what on earth daddy was doing.
“I also checked my phone at key milestones I set myself to see how the fundraising total was going up and read support messages and update people.
“Walking was tricky for a few days afterwards and I just wanted to eat and drink, but I feel much better now.
“My daughter asked me in the car, “Daddy are you running in the garden again?”
“I said: “No, daddy won’t be running in the garden ever again.”
Mr Williams set an initial fundraising target of £2620 – £100 per mile, but the total has increased since finishing.
He said: “A lot of donations are from complete strangers which is so nice to see and I think shows how much people appreciate the NHS and want to support it at this time.
“I want to say a huge thank you to all the amazing NHS staff we have here and all the delivery staff, postal workers, food shops and local businesses keeping us all going at this time.
“We’re surrounded by scary headlines and challenging times, but every day there’s so much good news and amazing stories of generosity and support out there.
To view the run, visit https://youtu.be/9pQlqO35kis
To donate, log onto https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/rainbowrollrun