Hello and thank you for visiting this page!

Next week I am going to participate in one of the most gruelling footraces in the world – Badwater 135 ultramarathon. When I read about it first time few years ago, I did not even closely think about attempting it. Not only it is tough to its core, but it is invitation-only with very high qualifying standards and requirement for every competitor to have a support crew of at least two people. It took me few years to build the experience and confidence to try. The race is 135 miles long and is held in the Death Valley, US, one of the hottest places on Earth at the hottest time of the year. The weather forecast for the race day is sunny with 49 degrees during the day and 33 at night. Also I will need to climb 4 thousand meters. I will have my support crew on my side to keep me alive on the way - my wife Evgeniya, my mother Svetlana, 6 times Badwater finisher Jonathan of San Francisco and his trusted crew chief Andrew. I am striving to finish the race in 32 hours.

While trying to find a great cause to raise money I stumbled upon the page with appeal for a boy called Sergey Gerasimov from Samara with leukaemia who is scheduled to have a bone marrow transplant surgery after spending 6 months in the hospital fighting the illness. The bill he needs to pay is not something his family can afford with his father taking care of 3 kids alone. This opportunity to help him will definitely encourage me going at the most difficult times and hopefully extreme hard work I put into the preparation for this race will pay off into something bigger. 

Thank you very much for support, it means a lot to me!

Sergey Ionov