NOT many university freshers make sure they put aside a few hours each day to train for the London Marathon.

But Doug Booker has already seen more of life than many of his fellow first-year s tudents at Brunel University, Uxbridge.

The 19-year-old from Wantage spent his schooldays coping with his mum Ali Booker’s very public battle with cancer, which she charted in her award-winning Jack FM radio diaries.

And since she died in July 2010, days after celebrating her 47th birthday, her son has thrown himself into raising money for the causes closest to her heart.

His skydive last year raised £1,500 for Cancer Research UK, and he raised £4,000 for Sobell House Hospice.

Now he is training for both a second marathon, this time for Abingdon-based Against Breast Cancer, and is preparing to lead a team of friends and families in the Three Peaks Challenge next year, climbing Ben Nevis, Snowdon and Scafell Pike in 24 hours.

He wants to raise another £12,500 through the two events.

He said: “I would never say I have been driven to do this.

“Different people deal with the same things differently, but this is not something I need to do, it is something I want to do.”

He added: “I had started raising money, and signed up to do the skydive before she passed.

“I had always wanted to do a marathon as well, but I had to be 18 before I could run in it.

“It was a way of repaying Sobell House, which had been good to me and my family.”

The commitment meant six months of endurance training as he also prepared for his A-Levels at King Alfred’s College, Wantage.

Now he has started his fitness regime again, juggling academic work with nightly runs while other freshers are busier visiting bars and nightclubs.

The politics student said: “I am still trying to get it to fit perfectly. I tend to study hard during the day, and then go out running in the evening.

“It was very hard during my A-Levels, particularly around the exam period. I needed to do revision, but also to go out for a 10-mile run as well.

“It is difficult, but I would not have it any other way. There would not be the same sense of achievement.”

He added: “Mum would have said I am mad, particularly with the physical challenges I’m taking up.

“We have come a long way since she passed away, and it has brought the whole family closer.”

Earlier this year, the teenager was presented with King Alfred College’s Steven Hayden award for outstanding achievement, named after a former pupil who battled illness through his time at the school.

Assistant headteacher Jonathan Smart said: “Doug was an outstanding student. It was a privilege for staff at King Alfred’s to work with someone so obviously determined to achieve great things despite personal adversity. Throughout his final year at the college, Doug at no stage allowed circumstances to detract from him achieving his goals, neither did he allow them to affect his infectious personality.”