Suffolk runner completes 200-marathons around Britain’s coastline for charity
After months of running, she's raised over £62,000
An endurance runner from Thorpeness in Suffolk has completed a 5,240-mile run around the coastline of mainland Britain in a time expected to beat the existing record by several months, after spending more than 200 consecutive days on the road.
Megan Boxall returned to Sizewell Beach on Saturday after a journey which covered the equivalent of roughly 200 marathons in 204 days.
The motivation
The challenge was inspired in part by her late uncle, who walked the same coastline after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, but it also came during one of the most difficult periods of her own life.
Ms Boxall was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2024 and has spoken openly about struggling with her mental health during that time.
"I wanted to start showing what is positive about Britain. I felt, the moment for me of clarity that I would do this (challenge) was when I was feeling good and it was the first time in months and months and months after having quite an intense period of depression that I felt good, and the reason I felt good was because I was running.
"And I thought, wow, there is so many positive things happening, just in this tiny, tiny patch of Britain's coastline. Maybe if I can go and see it all, I can help other people who have been struggling. If I go and see it and talk about it, then maybe shining a light on, yeah, on what is positive in Britain might help overcome some of the darkness that lots and lots of people feel.
"It was not an easy process"
She said the Samaritans became a lifeline after she experienced suicidal thoughts and periods where she “couldn’t pick myself up off the floor”.
She explained how sneaky depression can be, and how she didn't realise just how bad her mental health had gotten.
"I had never really acknowledged that I didn't want to be here anymore. And once I had really felt that, I was so scared. That was the first time I called the Samaritans."
She confessed that at her times her mental health was so bad it was debillitating.
“There were times when the pain in my mind was so intense I couldn’t pick myself up off the floor.”
She said that finaly speaking to someone and acknowledging that she was struggling then enabled her to speak out, get help and start her recovery.
"That is something that I am really, really keen to highlight. It was not an easy process, the acknowledging that something was wrong was the very, very start of the journey to recovery.
"And actually, there was quite a lot of work that had to happen from acknowledging that something was wrong to being in a place that I was a lot better."
Megan went on to say that getting over her mental illness was much harder than running 200 marathons.
"That is something that I leant on a lot on the tough days, like when I was running into ridiculous headwinds in North East Scotland, I was able to say to myself, this isn't as hard as when I was lying on the kitchen floor, unable to physically lift myself up"
£62,000 raised for charity
Now, after months battling winter conditions, exhaustion and isolation, she has raised more than £62,000 for the charity.
Despite the scale of the challenge, Ms Boxall said she deliberately avoided thinking about the enormity of what she was trying to achieve.
“With something like this, you can’t really do that,” she said, referring to approaching the challenge like a single marathon.
“You have to just do, ‘I’m going to spend a day running’ and then the next day is, ‘I’m going to spend a day running’, and then it just repeats and repeats and repeats for 204 days.”
Although often described as 200 marathons in 200 days, she explained the distances varied significantly depending on terrain, weather and the route itself.
“There were some days that were slightly less, some days that were quite a lot more,” she said.
Throughout the challenge, Ms Boxall and her dog Shadow travelled around Britain’s coastline in a camper van, facing gale-force winds and the depths of a Scottish winter.
But she said the defining memory of the experience was not the physical hardship, it was the people she met.
“The most uplifting part of this journey has been the kindness and generosity of people,” she said.
“I’ve been truly blown away.”
She described strangers opening their homes to her, supporters cooking meals and fellow runners joining sections of the route.
“I made some amazing new friends in Scotland who hosted us,” she said.
“There were so many moments like that... which I just appreciated so much.”
By the final days of the challenge, donations to her fundraiser surged dramatically.
Ms Boxall originally hoped to raise £50,000 for Samaritans, but said she was overwhelmed when the total rapidly climbed past that figure before she had even finished.
“I couldn’t believe it. I really, really couldn’t believe it,” she said.
“I thought I probably would hit the target, but I thought it would be in the aftermath.”
She said donations rose rapidly shortly before she completed the challenge.
“It went from, I think it went from 38,000 to 45,000 in like 20 minutes,” she said.
“And then within another half hour, it was over 50,000.”
Despite completing one of the biggest endurance challenges of her life, Ms Boxall said the achievement still feels surreal.
“Not at the moment,” she said, when asked whether she could believe she had completed it.
“I think once I start going back over all of my photos and notes and things like that, I think that will probably help it sink in.”
Even after 5,240 miles, she is already planning her next challenge.
“Later this year, I’m hoping to break the record for the fastest marathon run by a woman with MS,” she said in a statement.
Ms Boxall has kept her fundraising page open following the completion of the challenge.