A UK Power Networks engineer has smashed the ever-popular HYROX challenge and raised over £1,550 for Macmillan’s cancer charity in the process.

John Ryan, who works as a field engineer in Borehamwood, took on the multi-discipline challenge in Manchester to raise money for charity in honour of his late mother – who passed away from the disease in 2018.

HYROX is a fitness challenge where participants take on running and functional workouts in tandem, running one kilometre then a workout, repeated eight times.

John travelled up to Manchester to complete the challenge and smashed the course in a respectable two hours and 20 minutes and said that his efforts were in memory of all those who have been supported by the charity.

In January 2018, John’s mum Anne was diagnosed with cancer and sadly passed away the following March sending shockwaves through his family.

The support from Macmillan made her short, but brave, journey with cancer that bit easier for John and his loved ones.

They offered support through nurse visits to her home where she stayed for the duration of her care, which John described as “priceless.”

John initially set out to raise £400, which can run the charity’s support phoneline service for one hour, but has since surpassed that target more than three-fold.

John said: “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve been training at my gym for six months, in order to get ready for this and I had done all the disciplines by themselves and not had any problem with it. But doing all eight together on the day was just
something I wasn’t ready for but doing it for Macmillan was what got me round.

“Macmillan were absolutely critical to my mum’s palliative care. Mum accepted all of her care at home, Macmillan were there from the beginning with regular visits from nurses and in the last week of her life she was getting daily visits from the nurses to administer
drugs.”

Amy Parmenter, relationship fundraising team manager at Macmillan Cancer Support said: “We want to say a big thank you to John for his incredible fundraising effort. We are hugely grateful to him for taking on this challenge to raise vital funds for Macmillan. Every penny raised helps us ensure more people living with cancer receive the best care the UK has to offer, whoever and wherever they are.”

On top of John’s incredible fundraising efforts, UK Power Networks activated their matched funding programme donating £100 to the cause.