Stamford's Dan Zenchuk to make Walk For Ukraine a "yearly event"
The British-Ukrainian was forced to cut his journey short due to injury
Dan Zenchuk of Stamford says he'll complete his 152-mile, 6-leg journey at the end of the month - and he'll do the same every year after.
Born to Ukrainian parents in Peterborough, Dan intended on going the full distance to raise money for families still in Ukraine.
He'd walked from Uppingham to Kettering to Rugby and then to Ashby-de-la-Zouch before completing the fourth day by finishing up in Ilkeston.
By then Dan had to seek medical attention:
'The advice was to get to hospital within 24 hours because of the risk of infection and sepsis and so on, so we had to abandon at that point and come home', he said.
'Apart from the feet I felt really good. My legs felt good, mentally I felt strong and I felt I was good to carry on and get through to the end but once you get to the hospital and you get that diagnosis - they tell you if you'd carried on much more you risk much worse infection and possibly losing your foot, you realise that you probably pushed yourself a bit too far.'
A temporary set back in an annual project
Dan said once he'd fully healed up by the end of the month, he'll get back on track at complete the last two legs of his Walk for Ukraine - walking from Ilkeston to Newark and finally to Empingham.
Mr Zenchuk also expressed his intent to make the project much more long-term:
'I want this to be a yearly event, so I'm not going to do the same route every year or necessarily the same mileage, but I will be coming up with a different iteration of Walk for Ukraine every year - once this is done, start thinking about Walk for Ukraine 2023. Obviously put in place the learnings from this walk as well.'