While many of us will be watching the World Cup 2010 from the comfort of our armchairs this month, a young Englishman is in training for perhaps the biggest challenge of his life – running up the Big Buddha Hill in Phuket.

As part of a monthly series of personal feats that began last month, John Shanks (26 - on the left in the pic) will be in Phuket on 26 June to complete the extraordinary feat as a way of raising funds for the charity organization, Cancer Research UK.

John said, “Since losing my mum to cancer nearly five years ago, I decided that now is the time to do something to help prevent other families having to go through what my family and many others have suffered.”

The final of his herculean style challenges will coincide with the anniversary of his mother’s death on 9 October, where he will cycle from Denny in Scotland back to his home town and family in Leeds.

John’s father, Sandy Shanks who is now a full time resident in Phuket said, “I am not only proud of what he is doing but am proud of the decent, respectful, mannerly young man that he has turned out to be.”

Anyone who has driven or rode up the Big Buddha Hill recently will know that its rough terrain and steep incline will provide quite a challenge for the bold Brit. John, however is not perturbed and is using the success of his previous challenge of a half marathon in the slightly less hot and oppressive environment of Leeds, UK as his motivation, “I finished it with a time of 1 hour 41 mins so I’ll be hoping to complete the 7.5km from the Green Man pub to the top of the Buddha in less than one hour.”

Anyone who wishes to bid John a successful run should be at the Green Man for 11am.
After the event, there will be a boot sale back at the Tudor style English Country Pub, and also a raffle where various high quality prizes will be auctioned off.

If you would like to sponsor the event or donate funds or prizes, you can email: info@the-green-man.net or 076 281 445, or go to: www.justgiving.com/Iron-Man-Challenge-2010. Half of all the funds raised will go to Phuket Has Been Good to Us foundation, while the other half will go to Cancer Research UK.