A Folkestone man ran seven half marathons in seven days to pay tribute to his late friend who died of a brain haemorrhage caused by undiagnosed leukaemia.

Mark Macfarlane, 38, of Harvey Street, began the challenge last week in memory of his friend Stephen Adams who died in June.

Mr Adams, who was a policeman in Folkestone, had been admitted to hospital and began deteriorating suddenly.

It had emerged he had leukaemia that was previously not detected because he had shown no previous symptoms.

Within hours Mr Adams’ girlfriend Nikki Smith and his family was told that he would never recover and that his life support machine needed to be switched off.

He was just 39.

Mr Macfarlane said: “I was not quite ready for such a dose of reality, I admit, but I did what I could to help everyone after that and I still do.

'I was not quite ready for such a dose of reality, I admit, but I did what I could to help everyone after that and I still do.' - Mark Macfarlane

“I had known Steve since 2001, he rented a room from me after seeing my ad in the newspaper for my flat.

“We both used to run the Folkestone half and the Folkestone 10 mile as an annual tradition which was why I used this race to remember him.”

Mr Macfarlane said most of his marathons took place along the seafront and that his distance was recorded on a sports watch he was wearing.

Nearly £400 has been raised so far for the charty Bloodwise, which aims to raise awareness of leukaemia and strives to beat the form of blood cancer.

There is a £750 target.

Mr Macfarlane added: “There was almost certainly nothing that could have been done to prevent what happened to Steve due to the nature of how quickly it happened.

“There were few symptoms to even point to the fact that anything was seriously wrong until the very last minute.”

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