The Great Mapped Poppy Run

Ben McBean was a Royal Marine who lost a leg and an arm when he stepped on a landmine while serving in Afghanistan. To help raise money for the Royal British Legion and to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the start of The First World War Ben recently completed a sponsored run around London.

Ben's 31 mile London run was designed to draw the outline of a poppy on the map of London. By completing the run while wearing a GPS connected smartphone Ben was able to complete the geoglyph of a huge poppy on Google Maps.

Now Ben needs other runners to color the poppy in while raising money for the British Legion. To take part in the Big Poppy Run you just need to download Strava, RunKeeper or MapMyRun to your phone and then run any of the streets inside Ben's poppy outline.

The Big Poppy Run is continuing until the 9th November, so you still have time to help complete the big Google Maps poppy or to donate to the Royal British Legion (the UK's leading Armed Forces charity).