Welcome Friends and Supporters
Welcome to my latest adventure - the Jungle Marathon!
The Jungle Marathon (www.junglemarathon.com) took place from 6-15 October 2011 through the Amazon jungle of Brazil. Much like the Marathon des Sables, which I completed in 2009, runners in the Jungle Marathon were expected to be completely self-sufficient - bringing their own food, provisions, and even their own hammock to sleep in between the running stages.
Competitors had a choice of completing 110 km or 220 km in either 4 or 6 respective stages over the course of the week. I chose the longer distance of 220 km, which included a grueling non-stop overnight stage of 89 km.
Through my participation in the Jungle Marathon, I raised funds and awareness for the charity Facing Africa and for the National Council of Volunteer Organizations (NCVO).
Facing Africa is a charity dedicated to helping children in Nigeria and Ethiopia who suffer from a devastating disease called NOMA, which is an acute and ravaging gangrenous infection affecting the face. The victims are mainly children under the age of 6, caught in a vicious cycle of extreme poverty and malnutrition. Facing Africa provides funding for teams of volunteer surgeons to travel to Sub-Saharan Africa to perform facial reconstruction surgery on the victims of NOMA. Further information is available at www.facingafrica.org.
The NCVO is an independent, non-profit, charitable organization in the Cayman Islands that engages in projects to meet the ever-increasing social needs of the community. Further information on the current projects of the NCVO can be found at www.ncvo.org.ky.
Again I hear you ask, why did I do this? Well I suppose it’s because I still can!! (or at least I hope I can) Every time I set my sights upon a goal and then go on to achieve this goal, the sense of accomplishment I get makes the blisters, the pain, the cramps all the more worthwhile. I am reminded that I have my health and in doing something that I enjoy, I can also raise money for a charity that changes lives.