A NEW dad ran 26.2 miles in memory of his friends’ babies whose lives were cut tragically short.

Richard Shrubb, 27, from Gorse Hill, took part in the London Marathon in April and managed to raise £2,000 thanks to help from his community.

Richard did the marathon only two weeks after the birth of his own son Tallen.

He was running for Bliss, a charity for premature and sick babies, with the names of his friends Tia Yates and Johanne Styles’ lost children on the back of his t-shirt.

He said the marathon itself had been hard, but thinking about Tia and Johanne’s losses spurred him on through the pain barrier.

He said: “What happened, it does make you more appreciative of what you have.

“It doesn’t necessarily always work out for everybody every time, it’s very unfortunate.

“Because I was running with the names of the babies I was never going to fail.”

Richard, a roof sheeter, met Tia and Johanne through his fiancee Leanne.

Tia, 23, of Stanmore Street, Kingshill, was 23 weeks pregnant with twins when she was rushed to hospital in pain after going into premature labour in October 2007.

She was then told her babies, that she named Ella and Jaya, would not survive. After a three-day labour, Tia lost her twins only hours after their birth.

Friend Johanne, 22, of Larchmore Close, Haydon Wick, lost daughter Hannah Louise, who was stillborn at 35 weeks last October.

She went to hospital because she felt her baby was in distress, but when doctors did an ultrasound they could not find a heart beat.

Johanne’s labour had to be induced the next day.

Richard said he had always wanted to do the marathon, but it was his friends’ stories that had really inspired to sign up and do it for Bliss.

Tia said: “It’s an important charity to me because I know what it’s like. It means the world to me.

“It really does make me emotional knowing your friends, even though they haven’t been through it, they care.”

He had aimed for a time of four and a half hours, but ended up finishing in three hours, 53 minutes and 54 seconds.

He said: “It was very hard and got harder at the end, but I was enjoying overtaking people.”

Richard’s local pub, the Duke of Edinburgh in Gorse Hill, came up with a variety of fundraising activities including raffles and guess the number of sweets in the jar.

Mick Smith, landlord, said: “He initially came down to give us some sponsorship forms, but we thought, no, can do better than that.”

Richard also thanked everybody who had contributed.