Good Surname or what ?
Established Member
It's been a while since I posted on (or even read this forum). But now I'm back and I'm glad to see things continue much as before I took my sabbatical.
Two plus years ago I made the commitment to SWMBO to drop one or other of my obsessions for a while. My job regularly took me to West Africa and that had a big impact on family life. I also made the decision to participate in the Marathon des Sables (MdS) billed as the "toughest footrace on earth". I first saw this race on Transworld Sport in the early '90s and thought perhaps I'd do it one day.
The MdS is a 7 day, 6 stage footrace across the Sahara desert. The daily distances vary from a meagre half-marathon on the last day (laughingly known as the "Sprint" stage) to almost a double-marathon (this year 84 Km or 52 Miles) on the fourth or long stage. As this year was the 25th anniversary the total distance was exactly 250Km (150 Miles). The wrinkle is that it's a "self-sufficiency" race. The organisers provide medical cover and emergency evacuation , 8-man berber tents with carpeted floors and water. Other than that you carry all your own food, clothing, sleeping equipment and emergency gear. My bag weighed 12Kg at the start line.
As you can imagine I needed to train for this - I'm 52 and slightly too heavy
To get ready I ran the Ridgeway in 3 days (84 miles), did a single day 45 mile run in the Brecon Beacons (ran into some SAS chaps doing similar) and numerous other stupid things. Hence my disappearance from this forum and my workshop. But now I've done the race and I'm rebalancing my life; I'm still continuing the ultra-running but at a lower level. SWMBO is happy for me to do a bit of this and that in the workshop - so expect some WIPs soon.
Finally, I ran this race for a charity Facing Africa. You can see some of their work on a BBC documentary screened at 9pm on Wednesday 9th June (tomorrow). The documentary is presented by Ben Fogle. Ben ran the MdS many years ago and was totally trashed. His partner James Cracknell did it this year and came 12th. I came about 750th out of 1000+ starters.
If the progam moves you please consider postponing that next tool purchase and make a donation. I paid all my own costs to do this race (entry fee alone is over £3000)
so you can be sure any money you donate goes straight to the good cause.
Thanks
Two plus years ago I made the commitment to SWMBO to drop one or other of my obsessions for a while. My job regularly took me to West Africa and that had a big impact on family life. I also made the decision to participate in the Marathon des Sables (MdS) billed as the "toughest footrace on earth". I first saw this race on Transworld Sport in the early '90s and thought perhaps I'd do it one day.
The MdS is a 7 day, 6 stage footrace across the Sahara desert. The daily distances vary from a meagre half-marathon on the last day (laughingly known as the "Sprint" stage) to almost a double-marathon (this year 84 Km or 52 Miles) on the fourth or long stage. As this year was the 25th anniversary the total distance was exactly 250Km (150 Miles). The wrinkle is that it's a "self-sufficiency" race. The organisers provide medical cover and emergency evacuation , 8-man berber tents with carpeted floors and water. Other than that you carry all your own food, clothing, sleeping equipment and emergency gear. My bag weighed 12Kg at the start line.
As you can imagine I needed to train for this - I'm 52 and slightly too heavy
To get ready I ran the Ridgeway in 3 days (84 miles), did a single day 45 mile run in the Brecon Beacons (ran into some SAS chaps doing similar) and numerous other stupid things. Hence my disappearance from this forum and my workshop. But now I've done the race and I'm rebalancing my life; I'm still continuing the ultra-running but at a lower level. SWMBO is happy for me to do a bit of this and that in the workshop - so expect some WIPs soon.Finally, I ran this race for a charity Facing Africa. You can see some of their work on a BBC documentary screened at 9pm on Wednesday 9th June (tomorrow). The documentary is presented by Ben Fogle. Ben ran the MdS many years ago and was totally trashed. His partner James Cracknell did it this year and came 12th. I came about 750th out of 1000+ starters.
If the progam moves you please consider postponing that next tool purchase and make a donation. I paid all my own costs to do this race (entry fee alone is over £3000)
so you can be sure any money you donate goes straight to the good cause.
Thanks
