A SOUTHAMPTON Dad is to run the London Marathon to help the fight against childhood cancer.

Paul McManus, decided to run the marathon after losing his father to the disease last year.

The experience of seeing what cancer can do to a loved one, inspired him to raise money for Children with Cancer UK, a charity that supports and invests in vital research into childhood cancer.

“Cancer completely destroyed my Dad mentally and physically,” Paul said. “He was a big, strong guy. A tough and resilient guy. But that all changed when he got cancer. Knowing and watching what he went through when he was fighting this devastating disease, it became unimaginable to me that children also have to go through the same pain and anguish. To see a child, suffer in the same way was completely incomprehensible, so I thought, if I could run a few miles to help ease a child's suffering then let’s do it.”

Paul, a father of two daughters, runs two Southampton businesses; FM Engineering and Studio17, a dance studio in the city centre.

He ran the Southampton marathon in 2017 in just over four hours. Paul added: “I’ve always wanted to run the London Marathon - it's been one of my life-long ambitions. The crowds on race day will be awesome and seeing the sites will be brilliant – I hope they keep me going.

“I don’t really have a training approach. Admittedly, I am not good at following training plans and I found when I trained for the Southampton Marathon, I had good days and bad days. On the goods days I ran little a further then I needed too, and on the bad days I would just call it a day and go home.

“We will see how the next few months of preparation go but I am looking forward to the event and to raising some vital funds for a very worthy cause.”

His fundraising page is available at the Virgin Money Giving website.