Have you spotted Mr McEwan running the streets of Aberdeen? Have you heard about Mrs Rutherford’s encounters with gale force winds in the Borders? Did you hear that Mr Prentice broke a parkrun PB? All in the name of charity, these familiar faces around the school campus completed a charity challenge in support of Doddie Aid 2022. 

Running a minimum of 5km a day throughout January, achieving 15km on the 15th and then 30km on 30th January, Mr McEwan embarked on a marathon run on Saturday 12th February of 43km on the 43rd day of the challenge. What a way to mark your first ever marathon. 

Mr McEwan, Assistant Head of Physics, shared: “I love the community aspect of Doddie Aid, with people all over Scotland connecting and encouraging each other, whilst raising money for the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation. The North and Midlands team was great to be part of and helped to keep me going throughout the challenge and run over 360km in total. I would like to say well done to everyone in the RGC community who also got involved in this challenge.”

Mr Tayler, Head of Outdoor Education supported Mr McEwan along the journey which was met with various seasonal weather conditions. On hand to video the milestones, he kept him going until he reached that ultimate finish line back at Schoolhill where Mrs McEwan and their two daughters proudly congratulated him at the finish line.

Mrs Rutherford, Teacher of Computing Science has also been actively supporting Doddie Aid throughout January to mid February. This included hill walking, orienteering, walking football and 5km jogs. Supporting the cause, she highlighted: “I’ve made a conscious effort to be more active. If it was a weekend or a holiday I would go for a hike up a hill and aim to be back before dark. A trip around Glen Tanar never fails to disappoint. My final summit was in lashing rain and gale force winds on Wednesday 16th February up Cauldcleuch Head (619m) in the Borders.

“During the week I have been orienteering on Scolty and up at Balmedie, which was harder work than it sounds. On a Friday night I play ‘walking’ football and when possible, I have challenged myself to go for a 5km jog after school along the beach or at Hazlehead woods. Although Storm Arwen added a few more obstacles to the course than usual. All in all it has been challenging and fun and most certainly worthwhile.” 

Breaking his parkrun personal best midway through the challenge, Mr Prentice, Teacher of Mathematics commented: “It has been great to contribute to this worthwhile cause to try to find treatments for such a debilitating disease. Mr McEwan inspired me to sign up and, although I was not trying to do the runs that he was doing, I did manage to run a total of 102km over 15 runs. About half of these runs were done with Jog Scotland in Westhill, the rest on various country tracks nearby.”

Doddie Aid is a mass participation event, encouraging you to get active in January and raise funds to help find a cure to Motor Neuron Disease. It was founded by former Scotland captain and British and Irish Lion, Rob Wainwright and raised a staggering £1M in January 2021, with 22,000 people taking part.

Support Doddie Aid 2022

• Mr McEwan

• Mrs Rutherford