Onchan woman Margaret Brown has raised more than £3,000 for charity with a special ’70/70/70’ triathlon challenge.

The challenge was called this because Mrs Brown undertook it on her 70th birthday, and it involved a consecutive 70-minutes running on a treadmill, followed by a 70-minute bike ride and lastly a 70-minute swim of 80 lengths in the NSC pool.

From the donations she collected, £2,218.77 went to Mannin Cancers to help pay for a state-of-the-art scanning facility at Noble’s Hospital, while £1,082 was donated to Asthma Research.

Cheques were presented by Margaret at a ceremony attended by Anne Dowds, treasurer of Mannin Cancers, and asthma nurse Debby Ashe.

Mrs Brown - a former member and vice-chair of the Isle of Man Sports Council - said: ’I wanted to really challenge myself as well as trying to raise a significant amount of money for two worthwhile charities.

’I have been overwhelmed by the generous donations from family, friends and even people who don’t know me and am very grateful.’

Margaret completed the cycling portion of the challenge on a stationary bike in full view of spectators in the NSC reception, with collection buckets available for people to donate to one, or both of the charities.

Margaret added: ’Although I have played sports including badminton and table tennis, as well as a fair bit of race walking, I have not done any competitive sport for many years and I did begin to wonder whether I had undertaken too much.

’However, I did a lot of training in advance and was able to complete the triathlon.

’People have asked me what I intend to do for my 80th birthday but, although I will try and stay reasonably fit, I am not planning to do anything too strenuous - an 80-minute bus ride and family lunch would be nice.’