A running club in West Cumbria is raising funds for charity with a difference.

St Bees Triers running club are doing a pebble dash to raise money for Mind UK and they hope to reach a target of £1,000.

Pebbles have been painted by 13-year-old Abigail Hill, daughter of a club member and each has a key worker design on it.

The aim is to see how far they can transport a number of pebbles during their allowed exercise each day, leaving them so they can be carried by others.

Once a member has collected a pebble they publicise the new location of it on Facebook, with a photo, using the #pebbledashSBT!

They want the pebbles to travel as far as possible and currently they are well on their way. So far they have travelled a distance of 2174.89 miles.

Chair of St Bees Triers, Tom Kirk, said: “We normally host a charity fundraising challenge at this time of year and with lockdown in place, we had to postpone the original plan. However, rather than seeing lockdown purely as a restriction, we looked at it as a challenge too. We wanted to do something that would help our members maintain their motivation to keep fit, keep our sense of community, at a social distance, while raising money for charity."

"We know that running, and exercise in general, is a brilliant way to look after your mental health and with everyone’s mental health is being strained by lockdown, our choice of charity to fundraise for was quite an easy one, Mind.

"Mind provide advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem. They also campaign to improve services, raise awareness and promote understanding of our mental health. With some innovative thinking from our wonderful charity-event volunteers, we came up with the St Bees Triers Lockdown Pebble Dash.

"I’m immensely proud of all of our members for rallying behind this event and keeping these pebbles moving.”

Karen Smith completed a marathon for the pebble dash in one day.

She said: “I thought it was a great way for me to really challenge myself physically and mentally.

"I regularly run longish distances such as 13 to 15 miles on a weekend but this would be the furthest I’d ran at once in a number of years.”

“The physical and mental challenges of lockdown inspired me to complete the distance and show myself that mental drive and determination can help you achieve things you didn’t know you could. The run itself was on a wonderfully sunny day. It took in my local area and I really enjoyed it. It was lovely seeing lots of other people out and about getting their exercise too.”

Gill Mackay said: “I was getting a bit bored of biking and running the same routes during lockdown.

"This challenge has made me go to lots of different places to pick up pebbles and think of places to drop them off as well as learning how to use the “what3words” app!

"I think it has created a bit of competition between people and is raising money for a great cause.”