A WOTTON-under-Edge man has completed a 60 kilometre run non-stop for charity.

Joe Stokes, 21, took on the challenge to raise money for Movember and help to raise awareness of mental health issues.

The fitness instructor took on the challenge at Wickwar Playing Fields, running around the 1km track 60 times on November 24.

The trainer at Westgate Fitness completed the challenge in a time of just over seven hours.

As a result of the challenge and others that Joe is undertaking he is amassed over £1000 in donations for the charity.

Joe, who previously played for Forest Green Rovers, said that he wanted to do something for the charity after people had come in to the Westgate centre.

"Being a fitness instructor, a lot of people come into my classes wanting to improve their mental health, and men in particular," he said.

"All these people that I coach grow to be important to me and so I knew I wanted to do something to raise awareness for an issue that has been so rarely spoken about. Raising awareness was the whole aim of what I was doing.

"Inevitably I set off a bit too fast, but by 20km I was feeling all right. As fate would have it though, I pulled my groin soon after but refused to let it stop me. It was slow from there, but I finished in around seven hours and 15 minutes.

"We've just hit £1,000, including £300 of donations that was raised at the event.

The run totalled just under 40 miles and Joe was joined by friends and family at different parts of the run.

Movember is an annual monthly event during November which raises awareness of men's health issues. Often associated with growing moustaches to raise money for charity, it also highlights male health problems such as anxiety, prostate cancer, testicular cancer and male suicide.

You can donate to Joe's challenge online by visiting mobro.co/joestokes97.

He is not planning at stopping with that challenge though, as he finalises plans for a 100km cycle and running challenge in the Netherlands in 2020.