A marathon in every county of England – William Goodge

William Goodge runs a marathon in every county of England

• To raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support, William Goodge created and took on the 48/30. The challenge was to run a marathon in all 48 counties of England, in just 30 days.

Something that we hear quite regularly from ultra runners is how much they used to hate running before they began to love it. This was the case for William Goodge who until 2017, preferred to use his energy on the rugby pitch, never seeing much point in just going out for a run.

However, in January 2018, everything changed. After a battle with cancer, his mum sadly passed away at just 53. This difficult and somewhat unfathomable situation is what gave the Bedfordshire based athlete the inspiration to start his running journey. Running provided him with a tool to be able to process and work through the emotions that came with the grief.

“Running was my therapy”

After taking on the JOGLE in 2019, running from John O’ Groats to Lands End in memory of his mum and in support of the charity Save the Children, the 27-year-old was keen to find another way to not only raise awareness for a meaningful charity but to raise awareness of how you can channel your pain into something productive.

In 2020, he began to plan the next challenge which originally was meant to be running a marathon in every country in Europe, but when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, plans had to change due to travel limitations. Now confined within the borders of England, the new plan was to run a marathon in every county, in just 30 days.