Local runner gets ready to climb Whitby's 199 steps 199 times for charity

Sixty-three year old Karl Wittering announced he was going to take on the never attempted challenge at the end of last month and, faithful to his word, he has been training to run up and down the town’s iconic steps on Sunday.

Karl said: “You can’t back out of these things once you tell people!

“I’m excited, if I have to be honest I don’t even know whether I’ll be able to do it but I’m looking forward to it and most of all, I’m looking forward to raising money for charity.

“I’m going to start at 4 o’clock in the morning, I doubt there will be anyone coming out to see me at that time so for the first few hours I’ll be running alone with my head-torch but during the day I’m expecting some people to come to support me and keep me going.

“I’m also going to put some information boards out so that people that see me know what I’m doing.”

The challenge will take Karl anywhere in between 11 and 13 hours.

All the proceeds raised will go to the Whitby Wildlife Sanctuary.

Alexandra Farmer, who runs the charity, said: “Karl came to us and explained us what he wanted to do and that he wanted to do it for the sanctuary and I just thought ‘that’s quite a lot of effort!’.

“It’s lovely of him and I just wish him the best of luck.

“Some of our volunteers will be out supporting him on the day and I will pop across at some point to say thank you.”