'One man and his bog' runs from Bognor Regis to Brighton

Marathon runner Giles Cuthbert has raised nearly £2,000 for diabetes research after jogging from Bognor Regis to Brighton with a toilet.
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Mr Cuthbert, from Buckinghamshire, said he has been taking part in silly challenges since 2020, after signing up for a series of marathons which fell through.

“And I remember seeing this chap doing them on his balcony, so I thought I’d do them in my garden. I got a bit stir-crazy after about nine, so I started doing them in my village. Eventually, I started doing them in fancy dress, just to cheer people up. I’d dress up as a hot-dog, a birthday cake, I did one as a football. People would look at me and wonder ‘what on earth is that idiot doing?’”

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Even so, Mr Cuthbert’s loo marathon might be his strangest challenge yet. He got the idea to run with a toilet after seeing one in a hedge while out training.

www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Giles-Cuthbert22 for the fundraiserwww.justgiving.com/fundraising/Giles-Cuthbert22 for the fundraiser
www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Giles-Cuthbert22 for the fundraiser

"I just remember thinking ‘this could happen’, and now here we are, I’ve made it a reality. I’m not local to Bognor Regis, but I just thought, if I’m going to do this, there's only one place to do it.”

He set out on Sunday morning and, despite countless hours of training both with the toilet and without, those 26 miles were nothing to smirk at.

"It was hard work. I set off at about 8.40am. The weather wasn’t great – I set off and the first three hours were just torrential rain and I think I made a wrong turn somewhere, so I wound up going down some sort of bypass, and it was absolutely chucking it down by that point.

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“It was tough, but the toughest part was coming out the other side of Worthing to Shoreham. It was all cement works, very industrial. It was also quite hilly, which meant I had to push the toilet up more.”

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Giles-Cuthbert22 to find Mr Cuthbert's fundraiserhttps://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Giles-Cuthbert22 to find Mr Cuthbert's fundraiser
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Giles-Cuthbert22 to find Mr Cuthbert's fundraiser

Mr Cuthbert, whose two boys have type one diabetes, said his children were an inspiration during these, tougher parts of the run.

"My boys are the reason I’m doing it, so the thought of them helped. But there were also signs. I remember seeing a heart that was spray painted on the ground – You find little things like that which just spur you on.

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