I’m back again :) I’m continuing on my fundraising campaign for Guernsey Mind this coming April with something closer to the original plan. The plan was thrown pretty far adrift in November when I was supposed to be running through the Sahara desert for 4 days but instead somehow ended up running around Footes Lane track for 24 hours. Wanting to make use of the 6 months of training for the race that was supposed to be in Egypt, the Half Marathon des Sables (HMDS), I am now going for what is essentially the original full version of the Marathon des Sables in the Western Sahara desert in Morocco.

The race is double the distance and duration of the HMDS which results to 250km over 6 stages (7 total days in the desert) and is in much harsher conditions with temperatures often reaching 50 degrees celsius in the daytime and dropping to 10 in the night. As with the HMDS it’s completely self sufficient where I will have to carry all of my food and equipment in my backpack along with 1.5 litres of water which will be rationed to me at each checkpoint. Being known as one of the toughest footraces in the world this is quite the steep ascent I have taken myself on in the ultra marathon world but the original concept of this fundraising campaign was to show how much can be possible in a relatively short period of time.

I was absolutely blown away and am extremely grateful for the support and donations I received from the 24 hour run in November. Since then I have spoken to the people at Guernsey Mind and they have shown me some of the amazing work they’ll be doing over the course of this year. I really can’t stress enough how great of a charity they are and how important and effective their work has been for the community.

At the time of posting there’s less than 2 months until the race and my training is back in full swing. I’ll be sharing more details about the race and insights into my training and equipment in the meantime.

See below for a link to Guernsey Mind’s website to see more details on the great work they do. I’ve also put a link below to more details of the race if you wanted to find out more. I have an instagram page to track my training for this as well if you’re interested :) @drewkeepsrunning

https://www.guernseymind.org.gg/