A Sheffield man is running 200 miles in four days for a brave boy battling leukaemia

A Sheffield man has taken on an epic challenge by running almost eight marathons in four days after being inspired by the “smile and courage” of a three-year-old boy battling leukaemia.

Lee Freeman successfully ran 200 miles around Rother Valley Country Park, South Yorkshire in just 80 hours – but it didn’t come without its challenges.

He was inspired to take on mammoth led by the courage, toughness and constant positive attitude of three-year-old Alfie Mitchell, who has Down syndrome and is currently battling leukaemia.

Read more: A brave boy, Alfie, who is just three years old and smiles through chemo, leukemia and Down syndrome

And no matter what was thrown at him, the 43-year-old life coach says he knew it would never be as tough a battle as what Alfie goes through every day. “Despite everything Alfie goes through, he has so much strength, so much resilience. He still smiles every day despite chemotherapy, leukemia and Down syndrome,” Lee said.

“People warned me in advance how hard the challenge would be, but the pain I could go through to complete the challenge is nothing compared to what Alfie goes through every day and yet he does it with a smile on his face.”

Lee, from Sheffield, set off on the fundraiser to raise money for the charity Footprints – a driving education center Alfie attended – at 6am last Wednesday (May 29).

“It was definitely hard and tough to keep going, but everything was relatively simple for the first three days,” Lee explained. “My goal was to run far enough that I only had 20 miles to finish the run on Saturday morning.”

But at around 11.30pm on Friday evening (May 31), disaster struck. With 30 miles of the challenge left to run, Lee fell asleep standing up before being struck by excruciating pain. Lee was advised by a member of his support team, Dr. Paul, to get some rest. He headed back to the support vehicle for a nap – but the pain showed no signs of ameliorating.

“I remember writhing in bed in agony and feeling quite delirious,” Lee recalls. “At first Paul thought I was having a nightmare, but then the pain got so bad he thought I might be having a heart attack.”

Lee explained that he previously broke his neck in 2012 and had to have two discs, C4 and C5, replaced with a metal cage. He soon realized that running such a distance caused the injury to flare up: “The whole right side of my body, including my arm, went numb from the stress I put on those two discs that control movement and sensation . There. We all went into panic stations.”

Miraculously, Lee pulled through and began walking some of the remaining distance, but with his Achilles in pain, he didn’t know if he would ever be able to run again. He said: “I got down to 26 miles and got to a point where I thought it was going to be impossible – I didn’t know how I was going to get through it with the amount of pain I was in.

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“But there was no way I was going to give up. Because I couldn’t run, I could only walk two to three miles an hour – it seemed like a very long way to the end, even though everything had been on track up to that point.”

And even though it felt impossible, Lee remembered Alfie’s smile and courage – and that helped spur him on. “One of the team said they could see how much I was struggling and I was – but I knew that no matter how much I struggled, it was nothing compared to what Alfie was going through at the age of three and on chemotherapy.

“I knew I had to move no matter what happened and I had the fight in me. It’s true when they say you don’t know how much fight you have in you until something happens. Look at Alfie – he has no choice but to get up and fight every day.”

Lee also didn’t want to disappoint her own son, Logan, 5: “I thought to myself, ‘Do you really want to go back and tell your son that you gave up because he was too much or tell Chris. and Alfie that I gave up because it hurt too much? – I knew I couldn’t do that to them and that’s over.”

With the assistance of his team, Lee also set out through a combination of running and walking – managing to complete the remaining 26 miles of the challenge.

He said: “Something happened – I don’t know what it was. I finished my last marathon in less than six hours after all. To this day, I don’t know how it happened or where that power came from.”

Lee crossed the finish line just before 2pm on Saturday, June 1, where he was greeted by his own son Logan, 5, and Alfie’s dad Chris Mitchell.

Lee said: “Logan ran at me for the last 200m which was really amazing and to have both him and Chris at the finish line was incredible. I still don’t think I really did.”

Chris, 39, who received the ‘devastating’ news that Alfie had leukemia in November 2023, said: “I can’t believe Lee managed to run that distance in the time he did, it’s amazing . He grew such a significant amount of Traces. They need around £200,000 a year to run, so the money Lee has raised will be extremely important to them.

Lee has surpassed his initial fundraising target of £5,000 – which is enough money to pay for a child to attend Footprints for a whole year – but is pushing to try and reach the next target of £10,000 of pounds sterling. So far, almost £6,000 has been raised.

Chris was accompanied by his wife Rachel and their five-year-old son Teddy to watch Lee complete the challenge. Unfortunately, Alfie was unable to join them as he is still in hospital – but the family hope he will return home with them this weekend.

Chris continued: “Lee’s message is inspirational – that you have to keep pushing through the challenges you face. Alfie inspires me to do that and that’s what we do as a family. Lee also shouts about it through his challenges. It’s remarkable what he’s done.”

Lee has been in and out of the hospital in severe pain since completing the challenge. “My legs are fully recovered – I could run a double ultra today if I wanted to – but I have no feeling in my right arm. It was as if they gave me local anesthesia,” he explained.

Consultants told Lee that the amount of miles he was running would have caused a lot of trauma, stress and inflammation to build up in his body – particularly in the area where he once broke his neck – and i suspect it will regain sensation with the inflammation. and the trauma settles.

He added: “I was told I got off quite easily really – one of the consultants said it was hilarious that I expected to run 200 miles in four days without sleep and not expect that as part of my body to malfunction, which says a lot about my mindset. Really, I should have been more prepared that there might be some more consequences.

“But it’s an incredible feeling to know that we’ve achieved what we set out to do – it was Alfie and Logan who got me through it all.” To learn more about Lee’s fundraiser and to donate, click here. For more information about Footprints and the work they do, click here.