Englishman Dan Thompson “Runs the World” for Cancer Research

Dan Thompson, a cancer research advocate, has embarked on a run around the world for a good cause. Thompson visited Belize on Tuesday to run a leg of his journey – which he has done in almost half of the world’s countries – he hopes to complete the journey around the world by the 2020 Olympics.  Dan took his initiative “Run the World” to the Philip Goldson Highway to do a little over six miles. This morning he spoke about the purpose of the run and the Belize run experience.

Dan Thompson

Dan Thompson, Cancer Research Advocate

“What I am trying to do is try to complete a ten kilometer run in every country in the world. There are two hundred and six countries in total and I’ve now done one hundred and two countries. I am almost half way there. I am going to run in El Salvador in the National Stadium this afternoon and that would be my one hundred and third run and yesterday I ran here in Belize. For various reasons, I ran at one p.m., so it was pretty hot for us people in England, we are not used to the heat, so it was a tough run but obviously brilliant to be here. You asked me what I am doing here. So, I got two messages really, partly I am raising money for cancer research – I am raising as much money as I can in memory for my mother who died from cancer three years ago. Also, going around the world of trying to promote the message of physical exercise and activity in terms of both your physical health and mental health.  So, I was on the highway and this is Julian from the British High Commission was kind enough to come and run with me. His timing worked out – so need to run at one o’clock and so we were running on the highway. I think we were running very slowly there. I was suffering quite a lot but the great thing about the route was that we ended up at the British Army base. When I got to the base, all the army was there and they ended up clapping me in and that was pretty exciting. And if anyone from the base is watching, thank you very much. I appreciated that enormously.”

So far, Dan has raised over thirteen thousand pounds of his twenty thousand pound target; that’s just under fifty thousand dollars.  If you would like to give to Dan’s charitable run, you can visit www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Dan-Thompson11