Chaddleworth man Oli Powell, 34, running seven marathons in seven days for three-year-old son Angus who has incredibly rare neurological disorder CRELD1

A man will be running seven marathons over seven days to raise awareness for his young son’s incredibly rare neurological disorder.

Chaddleworth resident Oli Powell, 34, will be completing the intense challenge from December 9 to December 15, running just over 26 miles seven times from his home and back beginning at 9am every day.

Oli, who works in the renewable energy industry, is taking on the mammoth task for his three-year-old son Angus who was diagnosed in the summer with a newly-identified neurological and genetic disorder called CRELD1 (Cysteine Rich With EGF Like Domains 1).

Angus, called Gus by his family, is the 18th person in the world to be diagnosed with this condition and only one medical paper has been written on it.

Oli’s wife and Angus’ mother Sophie said: “We are lucky because Gus seems to be on the milder end of the scale.

“He’s a happy little boy. He can walk, he can go to nursery, but a lot of these children can’t sit up, they can’t walk and they are being tube fed.

“Some of these kids are really fighting for their life every day. If we can do something to help then that would be amazing.”

Symptoms for CRELD1 include seizures and developmental delay and it can also effect the heart, hearing, sight and other functions of the body.

Oli is hoping that his seven marathons in seven days will raise a significant amount of money and awareness for CRELD1, with all the proceeds going to the CRELD1 Warriors charity to fund much-needed research into the condition.

He said the training in preparation for the challenge had been going well.

“It’s been difficult to try and juggle normal life and children and everything else going on but I think we’ve done alright,” he said.

“I hope I am in a good state to be able to do it. I’m feeling pretty nervous about it.

“I know it’s going to be pretty uncomfortable and not particularly pleasant, but [I’ve got] the mentality of putting one foot in front of the other and not much can go wrong.”

Oli thought that his son wasn’t quite aware about his upcoming challenge.

He said: “Occasionally he sees me dart out the door and come back all sweaty, but he just thinks that’s something that daddy does.”