Hucknall man completely changes lifestyle to run London Marathon and raise more than £7,000 for Great Ormond Street

Reece Jackson, aged 37, also made a conscious decision to completely change his lifestyle in preparation for the event – including giving up the booze for 117 days.

His reward was superb time of 3hrs 38min around the streets of the capital at the weekend.

He said: “A couple of my friends have run it and I’ve always enjoyed a little bit of running myself and I’ve got children myself and I’ve always seen things about Great Ormond Street and what great work they do and having children myself it really focused me on wanting to do the marathon for them.

"I’d never done a marathon before this, infact I’d never even done a half-marathon before this.

"And as anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m not a raging alcoholic but I do like to have a drink but I thought, if I’m doing this, I’m doing it properly, so I changed my diet and I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol for 117 days."

Reece admits training was tough and days when he really didn’t fancy going out on a training run – especially when it was raining.

But the sight of money being donated to his fundraising page at 2024tcslondonmarathon.enthuse.com/pf/reece-jackson?fbclid= was the spur he needed to keep going.

He continued: “The more the money went up, the more serious I took it because I felt people were almost investing in me and I didn’t want to let them down.”

So serious was he, infact, Reece almost didn’t take in the whole unique experience and atmosphere as he pounded the streets.

He said: “The thing is with me, I’m that competitive, I just wanted to run as fast as I could.

"I had family plotted at various points around the route for drinks and I ended up running straight past them.

“People were stopping and hugging their families and enjoying it while I was like a man on a mission.”

His determination brought him an excellent time and has prompted the question several times of would he do it again?

“He said: At the moment I don’t know, but I think I would and this time jog round and be more relaxed.”