THREE Middlesbrough dads are ‘running home from Europe’ – yet they don’t even have to leave England.

‘Destination Boro’ is a treadmill, parkruns, tough mudders and a run any way you can challenge around the North-East and Yorkshire to raise between £3,000 and £5,000 for the British Lung Foundation and Teesside-based Zoe’s Place.

Dean McCormack, 33, Jeff Boyle, 34 and David Jukes, 37, will go on to run the equivalent miles from destinations including Madrid, Budapest and Marseille back home to Middlesbrough over 40 weeks.

‘Destination Boro’ began as a personal project for the running ‘three musketeers’, but they now have over 80 supporters also taking on their own personal miles challenge.

Mr Jukes said: “We’re three normal blokes. You can obviously see we’re not the most athletic to look at but they could see we could clock the miles up. People thought if they can do it, we can do it.”

Mr Boyle added: “Running helps a lot with mental health, with anxiety and stress. Going for a run, there is no better feeling.

“The more money we can raise, whilst doing something we enjoy, the better. We’ve been into the Zoe’s Place baby hospice, we see what work they do and what money they need in regards to keeping it going.”

The trio aren’t afraid of a challenge, previously running The Great North Run, York Marathon and 3,000 miles between them. The dads said they had embarked on the lifestyle change to inspire their own children.

Rachel Willmore, 33, community fundraiser for Zoe’s Place said: “Without the support of the public, local communities and businesses we wouldn’t be able to open."

She is now taking on the ‘Destination Boro’ challenge herself. Rachel is running the 400 miles from the three different ‘Zoe’s Place’ sites across England – Middlesbrough, Liverpool and Coventry.

She said: “Our philosophy at Zoe’s Place is it doesn’t matter how long a life is lived. It is the quality, what is actually put into it. We like to make every day as much fun as possible in order to make that quality of life just the best they can have.”

If you want to support ‘Destination Boro’ find out more @DestinationBoro