Adam Prunty, who is raising money to fund a scholarship for a Bermudian student, finished second in one of Britain’s toughest endurance races.

Prunty, who works as an actuary for MSReinsurance, finished second in the 100km Thames Path Challenge, which takes place between Putney in South London and Marlow in Buckinghamshire over the course of a weekend.

However, it took Prunty only 8hrs 49mins to complete the stamina-sapping run and at the finish line he was delighted with his position.

“I was pretty surprised to finish second as I had no idea where I was as it’s such a long race,” Prunty said.

“I was pretty pleased as I think around 700 people finished the race. I had some family there at around 70K and they said I wasn’t too far off the front. My time included a couple of stops for a couple of minutes, so I think all in all I was running for 8hrs 41 min.”

While some of us find it difficult to run a bath never mind a mile, Prunty relishes distance competition, but he had never run more than a marathon (26 miles/40.1km) in one hit before

“This was more than double as far as I’d run before,” Prunty said.

“The legs felt pretty good and the first marathon felt good, I was under control, but I started to feel sore at about 50K.

“My parents were there at about the halfway point so that gave me a boost for about 10K but 60K was about when I realised that I still had nearly another marathon to do and I was pretty sore, so that’s when it got tough until about 90K. The final 10K you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

“I was proud that I got through it without any issues other than a few pains in my hips and knees and I managed to keep going. At the finish you have the feeling that you’re happy but that quickly turns to never wanting to do this ever again.”

While running two and a half marathons was a personal challenge for Prunty, he was also doing it to raise funds for a scholarship he is hoping to set up for a Bermudian student.

Prunty has already raised $4,000 but is looking for some vital contributions, with his employer MS Reinsurance agreeing to match donations.

“I wanted to do a challenge and I wanted to do something for charity so I was looking around at what I could do and thought it was a good idea to raise money for an additional scholarship for someone that might not otherwise be able to go to university,” Prunty said

“I’m not Bermudian but I know if I had been brought up here it would have been pretty hard for my parents to pay for me to go to university so I thought it would be a good thing to do.

“My company, MS Reinsurance, supports some scholarships already and they agreed to match any donations up to $10,000, which was nice. At the moment I’m at about $4,000. My original goal was $10,000 and I’m probably not going to get that, but if I can get up to $5,000, matching that would mean $10,000, which would be great.”

Anybody wishing to help Adam Prunty with donations is advised to get in touch with him on Linkedin. He can also be reached on Adam.Prunty@MSReinsurance.com