A year to remember for fitness addict

Buy photos » Fitness fanatic Ross Wearing tackled 12 tough challenges last year for charity. 29.012.033.rug.jm1 (www.buyphotos247.com)

A FITNESS fanatic has earned himself a well earned rest after a year on the go.

Forgetting the 12 Days of Christmas, Ross Wearing ended 2012 with the 31ks of Christmas - running the day in kilometres for each date in December, including 25km on Christmas Day.

It capped off a memorable year for the 43-year-old who also completed an eight hour cycling and running endurance race, a nine mile swim across a French lake and a 40 mile ultra marathon during his year long ordeal.

And it has paid off, with the the married father-of-two from Rugby raising £9,500 so far for the Macmillan Cancer Nurses charity.

Ross, a supply analyst for George clothing at Lutterworth's Magna Park, said: "What an amazing year. When I sat on that rowing machine last January for my first challenge I thought maybe we could raise a few thousand, so it would be amazing to hit £10,000.

"Some challenges were harder than others, some more physically and some more mentally tough.

"Swimming the length of Lake Annecy is probably the only challenge I'd not want to do again but it is probably the one I'm most happy about. Just under 6 hours of swimming is a long time and this was one challenge where I thought I'd bit off more than I could chew.

"With two miles to go I very nearly quit - I was exhausted and I felt ill, I wasn't in a good place, so what a feeling it was to finally get to the other end."

Ross was inspired to take on the gruelling year of challenges after his father-in-law was helped by Macmillan nurses following treatment for bowel cancer.

Wendy Mills, spokeswoman for George where Ross works, said: "No matter how tough the training and gruelling the challenges got, he still managed to keep smiling."

Visit www.justgiving.com/ross-wearing to donate.

Share This

Regional news »