IT WAS the title of the book that caught my attention because I didn’t understand it.

I’m no running enthusiast – I mean, look at me – but surely gold is the ultimate goal for an athlete of any standard?

But then “Don’t Settle for Gold”, written by local runner Stephen Fry, is not about finishing first and fastest.

It’s about setting yourself a great challenge for such a worthwhile cause and pushing yourself to the limit and beyond to finish it any which way.

In the case of Fry, a member of Bingley Harriers and a Bantams fan, it was running from Lands End to John O’Groats in a month in aid of Andy’s Man Club, the male mental health charity.

Fry was spurred on to take up the marathon of marathons from the bottom to the top after reading that every two hours a man in the UK aged between 20 and 50 will take his own life.

He kept a diary of the 29 days it took to cover the impressive course and the result is a humorous, thought-provoking and emotional read.

There’s a touch of Bill Bryson with his light-hearted description of the different areas and some of the local characters he met along the way. And there are plenty of cake references, lots and lots of them.

You could arguably carry Fry’s book around as a reliable guide to some of the tastiest tea shops in towns up and down the country.

The idea of putting all his Facebook musings together in one big read was not planned but just fell into place.

“Sat on a bench, ate wine gums and had a nap,” laughed wife Angela when it was first mentioned. “I can see your book will be rolling off the shelves.”

But the serious message behind why he was doing it was reinforced in a conversation with a young horse rider he jogged past in the Black Country.

Asking which charity he was running for, she then revealed that her dad had committed suicide two months earlier.

Fry wrote: “Suddenly I was not just doing this for myself but for every father, every brother and every son in the country, especially if they were considering taking their own life and I was doing it for their wives, their mothers and their daughters.”

That, I’m sure you’ll agree, is worth far more than gold.

“Don’t Settle for Gold” is published by Baildon Publishing and costs £14.99.