A SWINDON tech expert ran more than 100km to fundraise for Alzheimer's research in memory of his late nan.

Paul Harding spent his summer pounding the pavement as part of a national Running Down Dementia campaign and completed it after reaching the end of the Swindon Half Marathon.

He said: “When I started, I hadn’t run more than 10km in one go. On my first run, I ran for 12km and I ached for days afterwards.

"Then I just went for it and ran around the streets of Lechlade and took part in the Parkruns in Cirencester.

"All of the effort culminated in the Swindon Half Marathon and I’d like to thank everyone for supporting me over the weeks.

"My nan Ida Kate was affected by dementia so this was very personal for me,”

Paul is the techie behind award-winning app Kids Covered and community platform Zapp Active. He raised almost £300 for charity with his summer-long sprinting.

So far, the Running Down Dementia campaign has seen almost 4,000 runners raising over £320,000 by running more than 756,300 km.

Paul is still running now and has found that it helps him clear his mind. He added: “When you are self employed, it’s easy to say you haven’t got time for things.

"I found committing to this helped me lose some weight as I also stopped drinking alcohol and I just feel better for it. I’m still out running regularly and hope I can keep it up.

“This whole running challenge demonstrated to me the importance of community and working together to achieve things. I hardly ever ran alone. I’m trying to replicate that kind of community spirit online by bringing people together to let everyone know what’s going on in their community."

He hopes community event organisers and charities will join his Zapp Active platform.

It aims to help its users share news, links to their own businesses, projects, community events or charities and is being trialled around the Swindon area.

There will be an option to take event bookings through the site – with Zapp Active taking a small fee with each booking.

His app Kids Covered which provides a news and booking system for childminders was named the Most Innovative Tech Solution at the Swindon & Wiltshire Techies 2019.

Contact Paul on paul@zappactive.com