Maths teacher Simon Levy is counting down to an eight marathons in eight days challenge to raise money for a heart disease charity in memory of his grandparents.
Mr Levy, 29, will start his 200-mile-plus odyssey at the Paris Marathon on April 10. He will then run the equivalent distance each day taking him and a friend on cross-channel route to finish the exhausting programme at the London Marathon on April 17.
The Norfolk resident hopes to raise at least £1,500 for the British Heart Foundation. His mother's parents Judah and Jessie Shoop died within a week of each other in November. Both were 91 and had been suffering from heart disease.
A keen athlete, Mr Levy has twice completed the London event and last year ran the Rotterdam Marathon in under three hours. His younger sister Deborah recently raised £900 for a bowel cancer charity by completing a half-marathon in Paris.
Mum Beverley thinks he is "completely bonkers" but accepts that "it's his way of dealing with an incredibly hard year".
Mr Levy said his grandparents would have been proud of him, but would have wanted him to do the marathons for other reasons. "That's just the kind of people they were."
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