Dad-of-two Julian Danton, of Chippenham, is preparing to tackle his first marathon in memory of his mother who died last year after a long battle with cancer.

Mr Danton, of Greenway Gardens, will run the New York Marathon to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support to say thank you to the nurse who cared for his mum Sheila.

The 43-year-old said: “My mum died last year after more than 20 years fighting cancer and I wanted to do something in her memory.

“In recent years she had a Macmillan nurse and both mum and dad found her to be tremendously supportive and informative during the treatments that mum had to go through.”

Although Mr Danton has never run a marathon before he has taken part in several half marathons, including the Chippenham Half Marathon two years ago.

He and friends Martyn Lewis and Ian Maiden are taking advice from fellow runner Paul Gold, who has run the London Marathon.

“The training for 26.2 miles is much harder than anything I have ever done before,” Mr Danton said.

“It involves training five times a week, with a schedule that builds up to runs that are 20 and 22 miles long.

“We did an 18-mile run at the start of the summer, but when I first started running a few years ago I did five kilometres and thought that would be as far as I could go.”

The New York Marathon takes place on November 7. To support Mr Danton log on to www.justgiving.com/juliandanton.