Man to run five kilometres 24 times in 24 hours to raise money for Evie’s fight

South West running coach Keeton Hardwick has run an incredible 120km in 24 hours in a bid to raise money for the family of 10-year-old Evie Whipps who is currently fighting a rare and aggressive brain tumour known as DIPG.

The effort began during the regular 8am Bunbury Parkrun around the Big Swamp Parkland where runners circle the wetlands 2½ times to reach 5km.

Money will go towards a GoFundMe for the family of Evie Whipps who has been diagnosed with an extremely aggressive brain tumour called a diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma.

Evie has now become fully dependent on others to move and feed her and with the chance of survival of zero per cent.

Mr Hardwick said the cause meant a lot to him.

“My nephew died of the same thing when he was 15 so it’s a bit close to my heart,” he said.

“So when I decided to do the 24 parkruns that was on the same day that I heard about Evie’s story, so I decided that was meant to be and jumped on board and tried to help them.”

This was not the first time Mr Hardwick had attempted the feat, last year he successfully did the same challenge.

He said he had taken on some valuable lessons from last time.

“It’s still hard with no sleep to get through the 24 hours and the big lesson last year was Coca Cola, that was the big thing through those early hours so I’ll be doing that again this year,” he said.

“Also just taking your time and keeping on running and just enjoy it, I really enjoy the running and the actual process itself.”

Mr Hardwick said the support from the community had been incredible.

“The amount of support from the community that has got around me to support me through this is just amazing,” he said.

“It’s really overwhelming and really humbling to have that support.”

Donations rose by more than $12,000 over the weekend and as of midday Monday sits at almost $80,000.

Donations can be made to Evie’s fight at gofundme.com/f/help-evie-whipps-through-her-dipg-journey.