CHARITY runner Chris Wright marked the 100th day of his year-long challenge with a poignant visit.

The 46-year-old web designer who lives with his wife Sarah and two children near Barcelona, in Spain, is running 5k every day of 2015 to raise money for Alzheimer’s Research UK.

Today (Friday, April 10) he and Mrs Wright ran back to her mother Mary’s Chester-le-Street home from the Fence Houses care home where her father Les, 83, is cared for.

Mr Hurst has advanced Alzheimer’s Disease and has been in the home for more than three and a half years.

“He is the reason we decided to support Alzheimer’s, “ Mr Wright said

“First we were doing it for the Alzheimer’s Society and a couple of years ago we moved across to Alzheimer’s Research because they are purely focused on trying to find a cure.

“It is terribly upsetting for Sarah and her mum. Today Sarah went in to see Les and she said there was really not much point staying today because he had just woken up, he doesn’t know who anyone is.

“He doesn’t recognise Sarah or her mum anymore, anyway. If you had gone a couple of weeks ago, a couple of months ago, maybe, he could still occasionally give a flicker of recognition.

“But now he doesn’t know who they are. It is terribly sad.”

The Wrights arrived in England on Thursday (April 9) to stay for a few days with Mrs Hurst in Chester-le-Street.

Mr Wright said: “The run is going really well. I am really fit rather than totally knackered, which is what I thought might happen.

“I am running every day. When I am in Amsterdam I go in the morning before work and when I am in Spain I usually go lunchtime-ish.

“Touch wood, I haven’t had any injuries beyond the normal niggles, so that is going OK.

“We have the Great North Run coming up in September, which is a going to be interesting because that is 21k and having to run the 5k next day will be a killer, but that’s what I signed up for.

Mr Wright said he had raised between 1,100 and 1,200 Euros so far, adding that he would like to reach 5,000 for the year.

Follow Mr Wright’s daily progress on his blog at chrswrght.wordpress.com or visit justgiving.com/chris5kaday to sponsor him.