Last Saturday six friends began a 'run the cities challenge' to raise awareness of and money for prostate cancer.
The friends, led by Tom Vosper, started off from Truro and their aim is to run 10 kilometres in 55 English cities.
“All of us have been directly affected by cancer in one way or another,” Tom told trurocity.co.uk. “I lost my dad and Nathan, who is another runner, lost his dad too.
“Brothers Ben and Alex, there dad has had two bouts of prostate cancer and thankfully beaten them both.
“Sam and Johnny have also experienced it pretty much first hand and it is a horrible disease. I am hoping that we can raise awareness and money to help change the statistic that one in eight men in the UK are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year.
“One man dies every 45 minutes because of prostate cancer and if you look at that in football terms, it is two men during every 90-minute football match that takes place on a Saturday afternoon.
“This is part of why we wanted to do the challenge from football grounds and being a Torquay United fan and growing up in Norwich, there wasn’t many home games we could go to, so it meant travelling to away games with my dad.
“We loved going to different grounds, even if we lost, so that’s another part of the inspiration with this challenge.
“We know it is a bit crazy running 550 kilometres in 16 days, but we wanted to get noticed. None of us are particularly big runners and we have been training and not drinking alcohol to get the challenge done.
“We are confident that we can get it done and we are eternally grateful for the support shown by everyone at Truro City and the wider football community.”
The group hope to make it to Hereford's Edgar Street on Thursday, probably quite late in the day.
- Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men.
- More than 52,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year on average – that’s 144 men every day.
- Every 45 minutes one man dies from prostate cancer – that’s more than 12,000 men every year.
- One in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime.
- Around 490,000 men are living with and after prostate cancer.