• Married colleagues are attempting the historic 10k on Sunday

• Roger Grimes has not run in over 20 years

• Training was set aside as the runners’ wedding took priority

Newlyweds Roger and Rachel Grimes, both employees of the University of Warwick, are running the Two Castles run on 12 June, raising money for the University of Warwick Cancer Research Centre.

The race starts inside Warwick Castle and follows a 10km course that finishes inside Kenilworth Castle. The race and training for the race has been particularly challenging for Roger, who had not run for over 20 years. It took a lot of persuading from Rachel, who, as a regular runner, was in better condition than her husband at the start of running.

After a disjointed first few training sessions that were interrupted by their own wedding, the couple then swapped their wedding shoes for running shoes. With a healthy spousal rivalry fuelling training, the competition has been reduced slightly after a calf strain for Rachel prevented her from training. The new aim, she says, is just to finish, although Roger has a broader long-term goal with talk of marathon training in the Grimes household.

The University of Warwick Cancer Research Centre is a leading unit that brings together mathematicians, physicists and engineers to further develop cancer research. In 2015, the Centre conducted tests on a new cancer drug, FY26 that showed it to be 49 times more potent than Cisplatin, which is used in clinical treatments.

The Research Centre was named Lord Mayor of Coventry’s Charity of the Year for 2016/17. Professor Peter Sadler of the Research Centre, said:

“Every donation, however small, helps us to pursue as fast as we can new approaches to treating cancer. Recent Warwick discoveries have much potential especially for the treatment of resistant cancers such as ovarian and colorectal and we have an excellent interdisciplinary team at Warwick working together towards clinical trials of these new treatments. We value enormously everyone who contributes to this effort. I will try to be there myself to cheer them on!”

NOTE FOR EDITORS:

Photos are free to use but please credit the University of Warwick.

EC 09/06/2016

Contact:

Ed Coy

Communications Officer
Tel: 02476 150423
Mob: 07876 218166
e.coy@warwick.ac.uk