News'I'm just going to go all out' - Liverpool fan nears completion of 40-marathon charity challenge

Angus Read embarked on his incredible running adventure in August, having graduated from university during the summer.

Eager to go travelling before stepping into the world of full-time work, Angus’ wish-list of places to visit as a tourist began to coalesce into a much bigger ambition to make a meaningful difference along the way too.

“I began to realise I was going to be away from home for quite a long time. I’m someone who is quite goal-orientated so I decided I needed some sort of challenge or mission while I was away for all these months,” he told Liverpoolfc.com from Salzburg, the location for marathon No.31 earlier this week.

“I’ve always been quite into sport: football, running, tennis I always enjoyed as a kid when I was growing up. But I got more and more into running as I got a bit older.

“I had run a couple of marathons before and I really enjoyed them, so I was thinking of a physical challenge I could incorporate with travelling.

“I came up with this challenge. The list of countries that I wanted to visit kept growing so in the end I was like, ‘You know what, I’m just going to go all out for it and just try to do pretty much every country in Europe and while I’m at it do some fundraising as well and incorporate that sort of challenge at the same time.’”

At the time of writing, Angus’ efforts have raised around £7,000 of a target of £10,000 to be donated to Cancer Research UK.

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It is a campaign particularly close to his heart, due to several members of his family being affected by the disease.

“Cancer Research UK have been really good to my family in the past with support and helping in those situations,” he said. “So I felt an obligation to give back to them.”

It all began in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau and has taken Angus - who is completing the vast majority of the marathon runs alone - through eastern Europe to Scandinavia and, more recently, the central areas of the continent.

His challenge is scheduled to conclude in London on Saturday December 13.

“I’d probably say the first one was the hardest, just because I was a bit naive coming into the challenge!” he said. “It was just coming off the back of the summer holidays so I hadn’t been the best with dieting or training.

“My first one was in Moldova, in Chisinau in the middle of August. It was still boiling hot so I was running in 30-degree heat and I was underprepared, to say the least, so that one was very tough!

“My favourite, I ran from Nice to Monaco, the south coast of France. I was basically running alongside the coastline the whole way, it was a really beautiful sunny day.

“I had all the scenic views, and then running into Monaco was pretty special. And then running back to Nice. That was probably my favourite one.”

Now 22, Angus has been a Liverpool fan since childhood, with a huge admiration for Steven Gerrard making the Reds his club rather than following in the footsteps of Manchester City-supporting dad John.

And navigating 40 runs of 26.2 miles in 40 various locations has not stopped him from viewing almost all of Arne Slot’s side’s matches this season.

“You can go to pretty much any city in the world and there’s Reds,” he noted.

“You can always find an Irish bar or some place where there are Liverpool fans or the Liverpool game is on. We’re just such a big, worldwide club that you can literally go to any part of the world and find Reds fans and watch the game somewhere, somehow.”