In September, Ed Wethered of charity Raise Your Hands will run 1000km around the UK with a 6kg music speaker on his back, all in support of small children’s charities – and he wants as many people to join him as possible.

Standard reporter Ryan Merrifield met up with him in Cirencester this week during his countrywide promotional tour to gather support.

Ed is the 33-year-old chief entertainment officer of Raise Your Hands (RYH), an organisation which supports 12 charities across the UK, and his mammoth run, equivalent to 27 marathons in 26 days, will see him visit each charity's headquarters.

"The idea is we support small charities in the UK that work with children. We raise money for them and we raise awareness about them," said Ed, who took up his position in January, having been involved with the group since its inception in 2014.

"At the beginning of this year I thought what can I do that will fulfil both of those things and in our RYH style?

"So I thought, why don't I visit all the head offices of all the 12 charities we support on foot, and run to them?

"In doing that, I'll be doing a massive run which will be a huge undertaking, and I can raise money for them, but I also will be visiting them so I'll be raising awareness about them at the same time."

Ed's run begins on August 30 in London, finishing 26 days later back in the capitol, having taken in Gloucester, as well as Newquay, Bristol, Worcester, Birmingham and everywhere in between.

The run has been broken into sections, with some of the most beautiful trails falling over the weekends, and anyone can get involved as much or little as they like.

The final day on September 24 finishes with a BBQ and craft beer party in the garden of the People’s Park Tavern in Victoria Park.

"I'm sponsored by the London beer factory," said Ed, "they're going to be providing free beer for runners at the end of the race on the weekends and I'm taking a speaker made by a company called BeatBringer, which is a Danish company, there's only four in the world."

It will be the first time anyone has run 1000km with two six-inch woofers and two 25mm soft dome tweeters weighing a stone on their back.

Ed said: "It's so I can play some tunes and we're going to have a collaborative Spotify playlist so people can add to that."

Having worked in finance for many years, Ed became disillusioned with his career and wanted to get involved in charitable work that could be "open and approachable and engaging for people" - something he feels this run embodies completely.

But that doesn't mean he hasn't had to work hard for his challenge.

"It's been hard because you've got to give up lots of your social life, give up seeing people, and you're thinking about the things that you eat and drink; you've got to really modify that.

"It's been a lot of weight training in the gym, like stress training and a lot of core.

"I've probably been doing three or four eight-mile runs during the week, then 20, 25-mile runs on the weekend for the past three months or so.

"Making sure I can deal with what's going to be 26 days on the road."

Ed also explained that September or April is the "only time really you can do it" due to the weather, while he will have to eat within half an hour after each day's running, as well stretching out his muscles for an hour and taking ice baths, before updating his daily blog.

"I've always been into running," he said, when asked what his motivations for the challenge are.

"I did a big challenge a couple of years ago, which was about 300 miles across eastern Europe, and it was part of a bigger thing which my friends were doing, which was a 1,000 miles.

"I got back from that and I was like that was great but I wish I'd done the whole thing.

"It was my desire to take on a really big challenge just to see if I could do it. I want to push myself to upmost of what I think I can do."

Having been set up in September 2014, RYH - described as a 'community group' - now has more than 200 members and last year raised more than £190,000 for the 12 charities it currently helps fund.

Ed said the organisation was started to break the image of the usual charitable organisation by helping smaller fundraisers who are "doing some really cool stuff" and raising their profiles.

"I genuinely, honestly believe that the way charities go about engaging with people is just wrong.

"It's crazy. You've got people stopping you on the street asking you for money and you've got charities all over the place telling you this is a really bad thing and nowhere else in business does anyone use negative marketing to persuade someone to do something," said Ed.

"What's the point in that? No-one wants that," he added.

Visit raiseyourhands.org.uk/events/ryh1000 to get involved or sponsor Ed.