Charity runner Mark Allison breaks ankle in accident

May 27 2010 by Dan Warburton, The Journal

Mark’s mammoth run will take him through 14 states, including California, Nevada and Utah. In crossing the USA, Mark will complete the equivalent of 236 Great North Runs in just three months.

He had planned to leave the sun-kissed sands of California’s Huntington Beach in May 2011 and reach the metropolis of New York 100 days later in August. And in that time he would have covered an average daily mileage of 31 miles.

Mark is undertaking the Herculean effort in a bid to raise £50,000 for St Benedict’s Hospice in Sunderland, which cared for his 68-year-old mother Margery.

Over the last year Mark has escalated his training to a stage where he was completing 19 miles a day, with the eventual aim of increasing that to 32 miles by August.

But now he is facing up to eight weeks in plaster and his injury has also scuppered any hopes of completing a coast-to-coast run with TV celebrity Ben Shepherd for charity.

The pair met over Twitter and Ben has lent his support to Mark’s trans-Atlantic conquest.

Last night Mark, who lives with wife Katy, 36, a project manager at BT, and six-year-old son Jack, said: “I was supposed to be doing a charity run with Ben but now that’s not going to happen. We were suppose to be going from Workington to Tynemouth over five days, doing 29 miles each day.

“My wife is gutted for me but our main focus over the next few weeks will be our son.”