AN ALLOA man will run the London Marathon to raise money for charity in memory of a former neighbour.

Kenny Galloway has been training for the event for the past few months after inadvertently signing himself up for it.

He told the Advertiser: “My auntie has ran marathons for years and she’s always said you had to apply for the London Marathon for years [to have any chance of getting in].

“My friend ran the marathon last year and I signed up to get notifications of how he was getting on and then I got an email asking if I wanted to do it.

“There was me, after a few beers, thinking: “Well, I’ve got a year to prepare, that’s plenty of time”.

“Then I totally forgot about it and six months later I got the results of the ballot through to say I was in.

“At that point I had only ran three miles at first so I said I’m not doing it but everyone was saying it’s something you can’t knock back.

“They gave me a month to think about it and I was up to about six or seven miles so I said yes.

“Last week I ran 19 miles, so I’m slowly increasing.”

The 48-year-old, who works at the Glassworks in Alloa, recently completed the Dundee Half-Marathon in two hours and 20 minutes.

He added: “They say you should get to 22 miles before the marathon and then during it the crowd will get you across the final few miles.”

Kenny is raising money for Cardiac Risk in the Young: Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) in memory of Mitchell MacPherson who died in June last year at the age of 33.

Kenny continued: “They stayed next door. The night it happened I left to go and pick my wife up from work. By the time I came back there was ambulances and a helicopter there. They were there for ages trying to resuscitate him.

“I had spoken to him earlier that day, he had been away to the gym. I’ve never done anything like this before and I thought I may as well raise money for charity.

“He was only my neighbour for a few years but he made a big impression on me, like he did to whoever he met.

“Having spoken to his fiancé Donna, she told me how much this charity did for her and their wonderful son Mitchy in the aftermath.”

Not only is Kenny raising money for a great cause, his endeavour has benefitted his health too.

He continued: “[I’ve lost] two stone since I started training.

“I was 48 when I started the running and had only done a 5k park run. To get up to 19 miles now has helped my health immensely which is great.”

Visit tinyurl.com/bdhs3b9k to donate to Kenny’s fundraiser.