Post by Poundbury on Feb 18, 2006 17:19:58 GMT 1
Local Poundbury resident, Steve Howard, is undertaking the arduous Marathon des Sables (the Marathon of the Sands) in the Moroccan Sahara Desert this April.The Marathon des Sables (MdS), described as the “toughest footrace on earth”, is a 243 km “ultra”, incorporating legs of varying lengths, ranging from 28 km through to the longest of 74 km. Just to make things a little more difficult, competitors are required to be self-sufficient for the 7 days of the race and therefore need to carry all their food, sleeping bags, emergency equipment etc. as well. Water is provided each day, but again needs to be carried through each leg.
Steve has been preparing for the challenge for over 18 months, with the heavy training starting just before last Christmas. The training consists of gym work for up to 5 times a week and running/walking with a 12 kg rucksack to simulate the kind of weight he’ll be required to carry during the race. At present, he runs around 80 km a week, but this will rise to around 115 km nearer the race.
As the official UK website (www.saharamarathon.co.uk) states, as competitors will be suffering aches and pains, trashed feet, dehydration and potentially lethal spiders, snakes and scorpions, it would be a shame not to get sponsored to do so. Steve has chosen to raise funding for Facing Africa, a charity which helps children suffering from a particularly nasty disease called Noma. Noma (cancrum oris) is an acute and ravaging gangrenous infection affecting the face. The victims of Noma are mainly young children caught in a vicious circle of extreme poverty and chronic malnutrition.
The results of Noma are often fatal, but for those children who survive, it leaves horrendous facial disfiguration. Steve’s view is that the pictures associated with this terrible disease are too shocking to show here, but if you’d like to know more please visit www.facingafrica.org.
Hopefully, you’ll see sponsorship forms which are being organised through the generous help of the Poundbury Village Stores in Pummery Square, or being asked to contribute to Steve’s chosen charity in the next few weeks. Alternatively, for those of you who are into doing things electronically, you can sponsor Steve through his MdS website stephenhoward.saharamarathon.co.uk. Please give generously, if not for the charity, just to force Steve to really suffer for the whole 243 km.
