Yorkshire 'sprinting monk' who takes two buses to attend Huddersfield Parkrun win 400m running race

Yorkshire Post

Dubbed the 'sprinting monk', Father John Gribben ran the 60m, 200m, and 400m sprint races in aid of poor children in Africa. The pious pacer has raised £6,000 for the Tariro charity, which helps young people in Zimbabwe.

Transcript

00:00My name is John Gribben. I'm a member of the Community of the Resurrection, a religious

00:14community of which most people would call us monks. I've been in this community for

00:2246 years, roughly halfway through my time here. I took up running. I'd never run before.

00:33I was a bit of a wimp. I found that I really enjoyed it and eventually parkrun came along

00:41and I joined other people in the running. And then in recent years, very recent years,

00:48I started to do running in competitions. In the near future, I'm going to be running

00:56at Leigh Valley, an indoor competition in which I'll run for, I'll run the 60 metres,

01:05the 200 and if I'm not dead by that time, probably the 400 as well. I'm doing it because

01:15I love doing it, but I want to sponsor the training for it to help a charity that one

01:25of the brothers, Father Nicholas Stebbing from Zimbabwe founded a charity called Tariro,

01:38which means hope, hope for the young people in Zimbabwe. He has helped young people to

01:47find employment, to get accommodation and to get education. Some of them have become

01:56doctors, some of them have become tradesmen, but all of them are making Zimbabwe a better

02:05place, giving hope. Most of them were orphans or from abusive families at times. This is

02:14my way of trying to say thank you for the happiness that running has given to me.

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