Madeleine McCann’s mother to run in marathon

The mother of Madeleine McCann is to run the London Marathon in aid of missing people. Kate McCann said “it was a challenge that I had to take”.

The marathon is on 21 April – a month before the sixth anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance. “If I’m honest, I would happily have gone through my life without ever contemplating running a marathon, or even a half-marathon for that matter,” Mrs McCann wrote on her Just Giving website.

“However, knowing what it’s like to be living with a child missing and believing very strongly in what the workers at the charity do in helping other families like mine, I realised it was a challenge that I had to take.”

The McCanns were on holiday with their three children in Praia da Luz, Portugal, when Madeleine, aged three at the time, went missing on 3 May, 2007.