Luke Robson has run 35 kilometres over the past seven days.

In fact he’s run 35 kilometres every week for the past seven months and intends doing so for another five months.

The arithmetic is actually quite simple because it breaks down into five kilometres every day – he’s set himself the challenge of running 5K every day for 365 days.

And the 28-year-old is doing it for a very good cause because he’s raising money for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

So far he’s raised more than £11,000, which is obviously pretty impressive, and there’s plenty of time to add to that sum over the coming weeks and months.

It’s a cause very close to Luke’s heart because his mum Jane Bowler was diagnosed with MND, a life-ending disease, in August 2021.

Jane, who lives in Leckhampton in Cheltenham with her husband Steve Robson, is 62 and Luke said: “The day I was told my mum was terminally ill is a day I will never forget.

“It’s not something you can prepare for. I was helpless, lost, confused. It was a very difficult time of my life.

“I’m just a normal bloke, I like going to the pub, I like watching sport, but I felt guilty.

“I tried to find out everything I could about MND. I went onto the Motor Neurone Disease Association website and saw something about doing something to help.

“That’s the reason I started this running challenge and it’s the best decision I’ve ever made.

“I wasn’t depressed but I could have gone down that path. The 5K challenge keeps me healthy and fit.”

And while that is obviously true, through his efforts Luke is doing a lot to raise awareness about the illness itself.

For those who don’t know, MND is a rare condition that affects the brain and nerves. Symptoms of MND include muscle weakness, twitches, slurred speech and difficulty swallowing.

“It’s really slowed my mum down, she can’t walk anymore,” said Luke. “If she does walk somebody has to hold her.

“Her speech has slowed down. She can still talk but in a year’s time she won’t be able to.

“She sleeps for hours in the day because she gets so tired. She can still eat but everything she does she has to really concentrate on – walking, talking, moving – because her muscles have slowed down.

“Thirty-three per cent of people diagnosed with MND die within a year, 50 per cent within two. Touch wood my mum will live longer than two years, but it’s an incurable disease.”

Luke says that “obviously I get upset” but he’s also determined to remain strong, driven on in part by the many great memories he had growing up with his mum, dad and younger brother James, who is now 25.

“My mum was an explorer,” said Luke. “We used to go all over with my mum and dad.

“We used to go camping in France, Ireland, Scotland.

“She was a very adventurous, outdoor person. She used to love going on walks, my parents used to walk over Leckhampton Hill to the Green Dragon in Cowley. Now my mum can’t walk round the block.”

It’s easy to see why Luke, a marketing executive who lives just a stone’s throw from his parents in Leckhampton, is so motivated.

“When I started, I set myself three goals,” he continued. “I wanted to raise money, I wanted to increase awareness about Motor Neurone Disease and I wanted to try to involve as many people as possible.”

And Luke is certainly ticking all three boxes. At the time of writing he had raised £11,250 – by the time you read this, that figure will have gone up – while he’s more than happy to talk to the media about MND and the affect it has on people and their families.

He’s done a podcast and is very active on social media. He updates his Instagram account – 5K4MND – every day.

And he’s been joined on his runs by a good number of people over the past weeks and months.

“When I started I wanted to do something that my friends and family would think was a real challenge,” he said. “I didn’t want to do anything that was easy.

“I’ve run 5K every day since 1^st August last year, I haven’t missed a day.

“I didn’t want to miss a day and then do 10K the next day, I haven’t had a day’s rest.”

Luke is articulate and very easy to interview. When he spoke to The Local Answer he was preparing for his 208^th 5K, which meant that over the previous 207 days he had run 1,035 kilometres or 643 miles.

“I’ve got about eight or nine different routes,” he said. “I can’t run down The Avenue in Charlton Kings every day!

“Some days I’ll run down Bath Road and into Montpellier, and sometimes I’ll run in the alleys in Leckhampton.”

Luke, who has completed the Cheltenham Half Marathon in one hour, 48, has a best 5K time of 20 minutes, four seconds, but he is completing his daily challenge in about 28 or 29 minutes.

“I’m not trying to run flat out and I’m only doing routes that are relatively flat,” said the one-time Balcarras School pupil.

Not that he’s been taking it easy over the past 200-plus days, far from it.

“The second week in August was when we had that heatwave,” he said. “It was 35 degrees. I was getting up at 5am to go for a run having had very little sleep because it was so hot.

“Then in week 13 I woke up one morning feeling really exhausted, my throat really hurt. I had tonsillitis.

“I was on antibiotics and was in bed for 23 hours a day for five days. The only time I got up was to go for my run. That was my most challenging week.

“Then in week 20 it snowed. That was in December and after the snow we had that freezing spell, it was impossible to run on the roads and the pavements. 

“I ended up running round The Park in just under a foot of snow.”

And there are further hurdles that Luke must overcome before the end of July.

“I’m going away in June,” he said. “A mate is getting married in Cyprus. That will be a tricky week, it will be a bit of a party and it will also be 40 degrees out there.”

If he’s lucky he might have some company on a couple of runs while he’s on the Mediterranean island, and he’s certainly not been short of company when he’s run around Cheltenham.

“I’ve had about 70 people join me on the runs,” he said. “A lot of them have been friends or people I know but not all of them.

“For my 200^th run I wanted to do something special so I invited anyone to come along and join me. I had 40 people with me on that run.”

That was memorable, as was his run on Christmas Day.

“I said that I’d run as Santa Claus if I’d raised £7,000 by Christmas Day,” he said. “I ran through Charlton Kings dressed as Santa!”

His mum, of course, is his biggest supporter.

“She’s the biggest fan of the 5K challenge,” Luke said. “She loves me doing all the runs and she’s told me a million times how proud she is of me.”

And it’s not just his mum who is backing him because Luke readily admits he never envisaged his efforts would capture the imagination of so many.

“A lot of the Gloucester rugby players follow me,” he said. “Cheltenham Town Football Club have said I can do one of my runs around their football pitch and Cheltenham Racecourse have said I can run there once the season ends in May.”

Luke will be closing in on the finishing line by then, of course, but once he’s done his 365 days he’s got no intention of throwing away his running shoes.

“I’m going to keep on running,” he said. “I’m at my happiest when I’m running. I want to keep doing challenges, I don’t want to say too much at this stage but that’s my plan.”

And he’ll certainly enjoy any fresh challenges that he takes on, although he’d be even happier if one day there was a cure for MND.

“That would be awesome,” he said.

Indeed it would and Luke Robson, through his efforts, is certainly doing all he can to help. He is incredibly determined, incredibly brave and very passionate about what he is doing. He deserves all the support he gets.

To support Luke, visit his just giving page  https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/5k4mnd