A 45-year-old Princes Risborough man who only took up running in his early 40s will take on the London Marathon this weekend, raising money for HEART UK – The Cholesterol Charity.

Paul Ridgley was inspired to improve his fitness after listening to a story on BBC Radio 2, where presenter Vassos Alexander’s spoke of going from struggling to run to the end of his road to completing ultra-marathons.

Paul said: “I used to do a lot of mountain biking with a group of friends and I started to lag behind, and I found it difficult to keep up. I decided to start running to improve my fitness. At first, I found it hard to run one kilometre. I then started to run further each week and progressed to 10K runs and then half marathons.”

Since he began running, Paul has attempted to maintain a healthy lifestyle in order to reduce cholesterol levels, as several members of his family have high cholesterol and have had heart disease.

Paul completed the marathon for the first-time last year and has set himself an ambitious target for this year’s race.

“My time when I ran last year’s Marathon was four hours 28 minutes. I have been training hard and am hoping to run this year’s Marathon in three hours and 30 minutes.”

CEO of HEART UK Jules Payne said: “We are very grateful to all our London Marathon runners who help us raise awareness of high cholesterol by raising funds. Paul’s story of how he got fit and changed his diet hopefully will inspire people to adopt healthy lifestyles to reduce their cholesterol levels.

“We will continue to campaign and raise awareness of high cholesterol. If people know their cholesterol levels and ensure that they manage it to a healthy level, then their risk of heart attacks and strokes will be reduced.”