Dewsbury Rams hooker Sam Day takes on marathon challenge for NHS charities in lockdown

The 26-year-old former Featherstone Rovers player ran eight half-marathons before finishing his fundraising efforts by running a full marathon at the beginning of last month.

Day knows a number of people who work in the NHS and after going for a run to keep in shape with the Championship season suspended, he decided to run one half marathon a week until the end of lockdown.

“I did eight half marathons and no-one really knew what to class the end of lockdown as, so I just ended up running a full one at the start of June,” said Day.

“I have got a few people I know who work in the NHS so while I wasn’t able to get to training I thought I would do it.

“My best friend’s girlfriend works for the NHS and so do a lot of my mum’s friends.

“It was just a good cause to do it for at the time, especially with everything that has been going on. I did a few half marathons before when I was younger but never ran a full one or anything like that.

“I was just out running one day and thought I will try and run a half marathon tomorrow. It was spur of the moment thing and I thought I would do it every week, it got tough to be fair.”

Lockdown restrictions have only started to ease in recent weeks and Day admits he didn’t think he would clock up so many miles.

He continued: “I ran below one hour 40 minutes for a half marathon, so it is the fastest I have ever run at any distance like that.

“My knees are a bit knackered now from running on the road all the time.

“The first one was easy and then I did the second one and it was 10 times harder for some reason.

“It was spur of the moment initially and at the start of lockdown I thought it was only going to be a few weeks. I thought we would be back playing rugby by now.”

Day’s fundraising total currently sits at £810 at the time of writing and he hopes to increase that amount by taking on the Yorkshire Three Peaks in the coming weeks.

A decision has not yet been reached on whether the Championship campaign will resume but Day is determined to stay in shape while helping out good causes.

“I set the goal to raise £500 and I hit that and the fund is now over £800,” added the Dewsbury Rams hooker.

“It was a lot more than what I thought that I was going to raise.

“A few of my mates and I are planning to walk the Yorkshire Three Peaks in a few weeks to raise money for NHS charities as well.”

Donations are still being taken for Day’s fundraiser at: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/samuel-day1.