Shropshire firm's team marathon raises funds for cancer charity

A Shropshire firm which swaps team drinks for team marathons dedicated this month’s event to Testicular Cancer Awareness Month in order to raise funds for the charity – The Testicular Cancer Awareness Foundation.

BeaverFit, the leading manufacturer of outdoor fitness equipment and container gyms which counts everyone from the Special Forces to Bear Grylls as customers, offers staff the opportunity to take part in the 26.2 mile run on the last Friday of every month as a team-building exercise. 

This month, the team decided to turn their run into a fundraising exercise. Raising a total of £250, the team completed the long-distance run across the Shropshire Hills and even stopped to do 100 pull-ups at the halfway point. 

“It might seem crazy to some but everyone who works here is really committed to their fitness, so on the last Friday of every month we have a team-building day for the company where if you would like to go out and run a marathon, you can,” boss Tom Beaver explained.

“The industries we work in are very heavily male-dominated and therefore a charity such as this seemed really important for us to support.”

If the run sounds tough, so does the start!

“We begin at around 5am in the morning and run a full marathon over the Shropshire Hills. It can be brutal, and sometimes takes more than five hours, but it’s a great way to bond, challenge ourselves and keep fit. And this time we added in some pull-ups on a BeaverFit Garage rack at the 18-mile point to really push us to our limits. 

Laughing, he added: “We don’t force staff to take part but most do willingly. It’s a great event.”

Tom said the idea started during the first lockdown when he ran a marathon every Friday for 12 weeks. 

“After the first couple of months, I started integrating some of the team members from the welding team to the pack-out team, then some of the sales guys joined in and we just realised how good it was for morale,” he added. 

The firm decided to make this month’s event a charity fundraiser after hearing it was Testicular Cancer Awareness Month. 

Around 20 members of staff took part throughout different legs of the marathon, with Tom leading for the entirety. 

“This is just the start,” added Tom. “We’ll be continuing to raise money for various charities in 2021.” 

Testicular Cancer Awareness Foundation is compassionately dedicated to raise awareness and educate others about the most common form of cancer in men ages 15-44 and provide lifesaving valuable support for patients, survivors and caregivers.

The event was sponsored by Grenade and Brewdog which supplied pre and post-workout fuel for those taking part.