Leamington fundraiser writes book about his mammoth charity challenge

Steve Atherton, who used to live in Leamington but now lives in Warwick, took on 56 challenges from May 2017 to May 2018, for the year he was 56. He took on the mammoth task to help raise money and awareness for charity Helping Hands, which supports homeless and vulnerable people in the district.

His challenges included running with 56 different people, tackling roller coasters, driving a tank and running the London Marathon.

Since finishing his challenge year, Steve has been putting together a book about his experiences, which has now been published.

Steve said: “It took the best part of a year to put together but I found it quite therapeutic and as a way to ween off the challenges. I started the book from the first of my challenges. I did blog posts throughout the challenges and went from there. I always said that their might be a challenge 57 and that it would be a book.

“My wife Julie got the very first copy of the book and after she read it she said she was very proud.

“Putting this together I found it great to understand what I did. One of my favourite parts of the book is that when I did the London Marathon, I wrote my account of the weekend and then my wife wrote her account. It was interesting to see her account.

“It happened a few times where my family members wrote their accounts. It was fascinating to see different views of the same activity.”

After doing his challenges Steve also found that he had inspired others to embark on their own challenges.

“It is good to see other people doing their own challenges. It is like a ripple effect and it’s a nice effect of the whole process.”

Steve Atherton’s book ‘56 Not Out’ is available on Amazon and it is also on sale at Warwick Books for £9.99.

Steve is now working on his second book, called ‘Running off at a tangent’. Talking about his second book Steve said: “This is a diary I kept from January 1 to December 31 2016 .

“It is about the journey and the personal side of running and the experience of running with other people.”