Visually impaired Warwickshire man completes step challenge

Martyn Parker completed his five million step challenge at Warwickshire Racecourse

A visually impaired fundraiser has completed a year-long five-million-step challenge.

Martyn Parker, from Warwick, raised almost £2,000 for Warwickshire Vision Support.

His final steps were taken at Warwickshire Racecourse during the weekend's Park Run, and were met with applause from runners.

"It's been brilliant," said Mr Parker. "It really has."

To complete the five million steps, Mr Parker worked out he would need to walk more than 13,000 each day.

When he started the challenge in 2022, Mr Parker had recently lost his guide dog and had suffered with the side-effects of Covid-19.

"I had two lots of Covid in six weeks," he said, "which took me from being able to do four laps of this without too much difficulty to staggering around a lap."

Now though, he has a new guide dog, called Harper, and completing his charity work means so far 2023 "couldn't have been better".

Martyn was raising money for Warwickshire Vision Support

He was cheered over the line when he completed his challenge at Warwickshire Racecourse and thanked his friends at Park Run who he said were "fantastic".

"Nothing's been too much trouble," he said.

"There's been a couple of times when I've turned up without a sighted person to guide me and they've found someone to do it for me."

Mr Parker has worked with Warwickshire Vision Support for years and wanted to raise money to support its work.

"There's something in the region of 23,000 [people] across the county who have some sight loss who we could help, but in order to help them we need to raise the funds," he said.

"Any little can help, £10 for instance could pay for telephone befriending calls for somebody to ring somebody who might be lonely and isolated because of the sight loss."

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