PRESTON soldier Mick Belshaw was just yards away from a terrifying land mine blast when training in war-torn Bosnia.

The 35-year-old from Preston was jogging through fields with a pal when he was suddenly thrown to the ground by an earth-shaking explosion.

Mick, who is based in Gornji Vakuf with the 662 Squadron Army Air Corps, said: "I was running on tracks through the surrounding fields into the mountains when there was a huge explosion. It was a cow that had trodden on a mine. We felt the shock waves."

But the shaky experience hasn't stopped the Sergeant Major in his tracks - to tot up enough miles to stretch around the globe in a charity row-and-run challenge.

Mick has enlisted the help of fellow soldiers in Bosnia to raise funds to buy Christmas presents for the town's orphanage. So far, almost 4,000 miles has been covered.

Marathon-runner Mick, aged 35, signed up for the army in 1979 after attending St Edmund Campion School and Preston College. His home base is now Wattisham in the south with wife Dawn and children Sara, Claire and Christopher. Mick's mum, Pauline Blackley, lives in Leyland near Preston.

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