Chef vows to make the Brighton run
A CHEF from Aldershot felt so motivated while walking in May’s London 2 Brighton Challenge that he is planning to go one better and run it next year.
Cris Ricketts, 44, completed the 100km (62 miles) distance in 22 hours and 32 minutes, raising £1,100 for Beating Bowel Cancer, a charity that has helped his father who was diagnosed with the disease two years ago.
Cris said the experience of his father Spike, 71, spurred him on to tackle the challenge, but he wants to outdo his performance by running the course in 2015.
The father-of-one said he was under no illusions as to the enormity of the task.
“After the euphoria
of completing the course had died down, I started to get a bad case of the ‘what next?’s,” he said. “It’s a long way but I’ve done 15 miles in a morning. It was painful but I did it in two hours and 20 minutes.”
Cris said dealing with the ‘shock’ of his father’s diagnosis in 2012 had been difficult due to the fact he lives in the Netherlands.
Cris will be running the route, which covers the North and South Downs in a mixture of urban and countryside tracks, with his brother Adam, who also lives in the Netherlands, his sister’s partner Matthew Wright and his niece’s partner Lucas Haydon-Smith. They are keeping up to date with each other’s training progress via an online blog.
Cris is currently running the nine miles between Aldershot and Charterhouse School in Godalming, where he works as a sous chef three times a week.
Asked if he was confident of completing the distance, he said: “Of the four doing it, I’m probably the least fit, so if I can do it so can they.
“Of course, we would all just be happy to finish, though to be able to say we have finished as ultra-runners we would dearly love to cross the line in less than 14 hours.”
The trio aim to raise a collective £3,000. To sponsor Cris, visit www.justgiving. com/cris-ricketts.