This father of a family with three children and who lives in Cleator Moor, in the northwest of England, reached his financial goal a few hours later, reaching during the afternoon of the last day of the year the sum of one million pounds (1.13 million euros), for the benefit of the Macmillan Cancer Support association. The counter kept going up on Sunday.
“Wow,” he tweeted on Saturday afternoon.
This isn’t the first charitable challenge for McKee, who has already cycled across Brazil, climbed Kilimanjaro and rowed the equivalent distance across the English Channel. In 2017 he ran 100 marathons in 100 days and in 2021 he ran 110 in 110 days.
This year he increased the level considerably, for which he needed 22 pairs of sports shoes. Many anonymous runners and even sportsmen, such as English rugby coach Kevin Sinfield, joined their runs, often in the mornings before working in the afternoons at a nuclear waste treatment plant.
“The streets were full of people, it was raining but everyone was clapping and shouting,” he confessed to the BBC after the arrival of his 365th marathon of the year. “I will always remember.”
McKee told the specialized website runnersworld.com that he was not interested in eventual recognition of his achievement as a record. “It’s not the records that count but helping people.”