Personal message

I'm running the Comrades 90km Marathon on May 29th 2011, and need your help making the lives of AIDS affected kids better.

Why?

Helping out a couple of times with the Starfish Foundation exposed me to some of the legendary sporting events here - the Dusi Canoe race, and Comrades Ultramarathon amongst many others. These events are, quite frankly, nuts.  Africa breeds crazy races like nowhere else in the world.

Helping at Comrades 2010 planted a seed - could I possibly run such a race in 2011? The words of my buddy Itai came into my head. He swears he could swim the channel if wanted to.

About Comrades...

It's a race from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, 90km/56miles
The route ascends around 1650 metres and descends 1050 metres (!) This year it's an 'up' run.
It's the biggest attended Ultramarathon in the world.
It's the world's oldest Ultramarathon so it's drenched in history.

Some Background

In April 2010 I tried a little run around the block.
To begin with, 1.8km seemed hard. I built up, but was knocked back with an old ITB injury. I built back up to my first race, a 10k in Sheffield in September.

From there, I got on a roll and ran and ran and ran. Half Marathon in October, Marathon in November, another one in February, a 50km Ultra in March, and another Ultra in April. Bit of Tendon trouble along the way, but it seems to be under control.

So here I am, a month away from the race...

Here are some favourite numbers from the last year of training:
1810km (1130miles) of running so far
This took 176 hours, so just over one week of the year !
180 runs, so nearly half the days of the year
Not sure how many races any more, I think about 20

So as you can see, Comrades has been a bit of a commitment.

Starfish Greathearts Foundation

I have thought about what cause to support *a lot* because I tend to have a lot of time when running to think about this... so this is not some charity I just picked out the air.

The Starfish Charity supports community ventures to make lives of children better.

They especially support children affected by AIDS. You don't hear so much about AIDS these days, yet it's killing off more people than ever, and that can make kids lives pretty rough.

Think about your childhood for a minute, whether it was wonderful or difficult, and think how this shaped the rest of your life.  Maybe you can give a bit of cash to help a child here to have a better start to their life.

 

Please help promote this by joining the facebook page here!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Matts-African-Challenge/169069783146956

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