Pop fan’s 500 miles for tragic girlfriend
A devastated music fan who lost his girlfriend to cancer has run 500 miles in her memory – because their favourite song was The Proclaimers’ most famous hit.
Danny Bates, 26, has raised more than £ 9000 for two cancer charities by running a series of races, including gruelling marathons.
His par tner Rachel Walker died in September 2016, aged 24, following an 18- month battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Danny, who had been with Rachel since 2010, chose the 500 miles target because of the Scots duo’s track I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).
He and Rachel had seen the brothers perform at a festival in her first year of treatment and the 1988 hit be c ame one of t he i r favourite songs.
Grieving Danny said he started going out for runs to “clear his head” before pledging to achieve his goal this year – and has now finished his last of 36 runs.
The quantity surveyor ran seven marathons, 15 halfmarathons and 13 races with distances of five to 10 miles. His longest effort was a 32.6-mile run, which took more than 10 hours to finish.
Danny, from Basingstoke, said: “Dealing with Rachel’s death was difficult for me and all of her family.
“The 500 mi les song became so poignant to me, we shared great memories of it and it was one of our favourite songs.
“It was hard to hear at f irst but after a while it started invoking positive thoughts.”