A NEWPORT man has managed to complete a marathon for charity, despite the coronavirus lockdown measures keeping him at home.

Andrew Davies, 34, ran 2,110 laps of his back garden on the weekend in support of the St David's Hospice Care urgent fundraising appeal.

The charity is desperate for financial support during the coronavirus outbreak, which has closed its network of charity shops and cancelled a busy calendar of fundraising events – effectively preventing St David's from generating 70 per cent of its income.

Mr Davies, who ran the 2018 London Marathon to raise money for St David's, said he again wanted to support his local care-givers after hearing they were "going through struggles".

He had already completed most of his training for the now-cancelled ABP Newport Wales Marathon, so decided to swap the city route for his back garden, and got his friends and family to sponsor him by donating to the St David's appeal.

But on a warm, sunny Easter weekend, the challenge ended up being a lot tougher than Mr Davies had imagined.

"I underestimated it – I thought just going up and down the path would be quite settled, but it was by far more difficult than the marathons I've done," he said. "It was difficult to get into any rhythm, and quite daunting to look at the end goal when you've only done 500 laps."

Cheered on by wife Natalie and daughter Seren, Mr Davies finished his 26.2-mile challenge on Sunday morning, and was given a home-made medal.

He said that during this "tough time" he hoped "everybody could do their bit" in supporting St David's, whose carers are "working so hard and selflessly – my effort pales in comparison to the wonderful work they're doing."

Although donations to the St David's appeal have poured in since it was launched earlier this month – another £8,000 in the past week takes the online total to more than £36,000 – the charity is still a long way short of recovering the potential £3.5 million wiped out by coronavirus.

The charity's specialist care services support patients with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.

"We have been humbled by the tremendous response from the local community to the launch of the Justgiving page, and our desperate plea for help to tackle the biggest challenge that we have faced in the 40 years that we have operated as a hospice in Newport and South East Wales," Emma Saysell, the charity's chief executive, said. "Although the fund raising has been fantastic I'd urge people to keep on giving as the demand for our services continues to grow.

"We are coming under increasing pressure as the days go on, for our specialist clinical services and we expect this need to become even stronger and grow even more over coming days and weeks."

You can donate to the St David's appeal online at: www.justgiving.com/campaign/stdavidscovid19