On Saturday night the Dubbo-born 33-year-old arrived in Wellington having run a non-stop 300km journey from Penrith in 53 hours 11 minutes and 12 seconds.

He endured months of strength and conditioning training at Angel Kickboxing, Boxing and Muaythai Gym in Wellington, but nothing could have fully prepared him for the long, long road ahead.

Nothing, that is, except the inspiration of two special ladies - his grandmother Margaret Bennett and aunt Sandra Wilson-Tink, who both passed away from cancer.

Bennett completed the run within his target time of 60 hours to raise money for a room to house patients’ relatives at Care West Lodge in Orange in honour of the two ladies.

He said he would have given up several times if it weren’t for the photos of the two women he carried in his pocket throughout the journey.

Phil Bennett needs more than two hands to count the number of times he has travelled to Thailand to compete in Muaythai boxing so he already knows what it’s like to push the human body to its limits.

Despite having no previous long distance running experience, 300km, one hospital visit, blistered feet too swollen for shoes with torn toenails, an aching back and two bruised legs later he said the whole ordeal was worth it.

“I’m very cocky so when I started I thought that while I might struggle I would be able to make it,” Bennett said.

“But after 270km I was ready to give up. My legs were taking more than they could handle and I was taken to hospital with burst capillaries in my legs.

“I was delirious by this stage and don’t remember much and my back was giving me grief by the end, but I continued on.

“I had four support crews for each stage of the run and without them I could not have finished.

“I was vomiting by the end and went from 86.9kg to 73.3kg, but they just kept putting the fluids into me to keep me going.

“But it was absolutely worth it. I raised more than $5000, and possibly more, to go towards the $50,000 required to purchase a room for country families at Care West Lodge in Orange with a terminally ill family member.”

Bennett started his journey from Penrith on 5pm Thursday with a view of getting the first night out of the way while he was still fresh.

When he ran into Lithgow on Friday afternoon he went live to air on the radio and said he was feeling great. But he said just 10 minutes later his legs began to shake and he had his first vomiting episode, still a long way from home.

Coinciding with the weekend’s cold snap Bennett struck wet and wintry conditions and at one stage near Orange was wearing four tracksuits to keep warm.

On the final stretch between Molong and Wellington he was “asleep on his feet”. But he was supported by a number of people, including his mother and stepfather Pat and Peter Worth and Dubbo university student Emma Peterson, who ran with him to “make sure he didn’t get run over” along the highway.

“The whole way it didn’t matter how much pain I was in, I’d look at a picture I had of my auntie Sandra and my grandma and that was it,” Bennett, who had never in his life stayed awake for three days, said.

“I gave it a million per cent - I left nothing behind.”

Bennett said he had hoped his aunt would be alive for the run, but she passed away last month, the week before he had originally planned to take on the challenge.

He said his 12-year-old daughter Angel’s godfather Barry Gardoll, who was 41, stepmother Debbie Bennett, who was 48, and grandmother Margaret Bennett, all non-smokers, had also all lost their battle with cancer in the last two years.

Pledge forms to donate towards the Care West Lodge can be obtained from the Caltex, Woolworths and Sam Joel’s Shell service stations in Wellington or Bennett’s Angel Gym.

bill.north@ruralpress.com