Dad to run 100km on all continents

HE’S survived lung, stomach and testicular cancer.

Now, this fearless father of three is running 100km ultra-marathons on each of the seven continents in 2018.

Adrian Kent, one of the newest members of Central Beacons Mountain Rescue Team, is dividing all the cash raised from the challenge between a fund to help replace the team’s equipment lost in a recent fire and to charity Cancer Research UK.

The former Royal Marines Commando will travel 39,000 miles around the globe, going to each continent and running for 100km through some of the most remote and beautiful locations on the planet.

The ex-serviceman, who is aiming to complete each run in less than 24 hours, will pay all of his travel costs so all cash raised towards his £10,000 target will go to his two causes.

“You only live once and there’s a big world out there to run in,” said Adrian, who will start the challenge running in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley in March 2018.

He’ll then go on to the Cascade Mountains in the United States, South America’s Inca Trail, as well as Antarctica, Nepal, and the UltraTrail du Mont-Blanc before finishing in Australia’s Greater Blue Mountains.

Adrian was serving in the British forces as a non-commissioned officer in Northern Ireland in 2003 when he found a lump on one of his testicles. The cancer had also spread to his lungs and stomach and he underwent chemotherapy and surgery.

The treatment was successful and after being in remission for six years Adrian is now cancer-free.

“It was difficult because my children were young at the time but I got through it,” said Adrian, who joined the military in 1996 and passed the arduous commando course earning the coveted green beret to join the Royal Marines.

Now split from his wife, he moved to Pontypridd to be nearer his children three years ago. He joined Central Beacons Mountain Rescue last January and has just finished training to be part of the team.

The team, a self-funded organisation run by volunteers who save lives every year in south Wales, was devastated when £250,000 worth of equipment was destroyed in a fire at its Dowlais Top base in November.

“It was a shock – we couldn’t believe there had been a fire,” he said.

Adrian, who has previously completed some of the hardest ultra races and triathlons as well as Ironman and Brecon Beacons 10 peaks challenge events, has a punishing training schedule including 30 miles running through the week followed by a 40km weekend run and a mountain bike ride.

He is looking for a corporate sponsor and has also launched an online fundraising page.

In 2017 Central Beacons Mountain Rescue Team carried out more than 130 callouts to help injured walkers and climbers and missing people and animals.

The cause of the fire at its base, thought to have started in a control vehicle used for radio communications, is not known.

To sponsor Adrian, visit www. gofundme.com/ultra7continents