A FIGHTING fit father from St Albans will Race for the Kids to raise money for a charity close to his family’s heart.

Duncan Gibbons, 48, of Marshalswick Lane, will attempt the Royal Bank of Canada’s (RBC) 5km fun run in June in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), where his 15-year-old son Elliot has been a patient for years ever since his open heart surgery aged two and a half years.

Together Elliot, Duncan and the rest of the Gibbons family have raised nearly �20,000 for GOSH over the past nine years and in March Elliot, who has been taking daily injections since he was three to help with a growth condition, ran 10 laps around Arsenal FC’s stadium with his dad and his sister Amy as part of the Be a Gunner Be a Runner challenge to add to the pot.

But now it is time for his dad to shine and Duncan, who works for RBC, has already started training for the Race for the Kids challenge on June 6, when hundreds of GOSH fundraisers will gather in London’s Battersea Park to take part in the sponsored run together.

Duncan said that the family has always grabbed any opportunity to fundraise for GOSH. “We are all interested in the work that the Hospital does because it has been so central to Elliot’s life,” he said. “I ran the London Marathon for Great Ormond Street five years ago and I’ve even been to Peru with them. Bring on the next challenge!”

Thousands of children are treated at GOSH every year and to help the RBC’s fundraising mission, register for Race for the Kids online at www.raceforthekids.co.uk