Red Cross Blogs

Fun run today, Everest tomorrow

By Alix Miller
September 22, 2009 at 4:59 pm

It’s great to see one of my favourite comics, Eddie Izzard,  get the marathon habit. In fact that’s putting it mildly. Not for him a mere London Marathon blast. He’s become the man who just can’t stop running, having notched up a whopping 43 back-to-back marathons in 51 days.

I don’t know about you but I find these extraordinary feats of endurance by ‘ordinary’ people so inspiring. It’s a reminder when you are finding it an effort merely climbing out of bed on these increasingly wintry mornings, of just what the human body is capable of, if you are determined enough.

Have you heard of Sara Campbell? Probably not. When I was a journalist a few years ago I interviewed her for a feature I was writing for a health magazine. At that time she was living in London and she was telling me how a digestive condition exacerbated by a stressful job in PR had led her to become a yoga teacher.

Fast forward a few years, and through mastering yogic breathing and bigger-than-average lung capacity Sara has now become a sports sensation as a world champion freediver. Talk about change of direction.

I also found out recently that not-so-ordinary Sir Ranulph Fiennes (one of my all-time heroes) only took up rock climbing at the age of 61 and then promptly tackled Everest, with a heart condition. As you do.

Then there are the two plucky teenagers from Lewes in Sussex we’ve come across on the grapevine who are pedalling to Australia to raise funds for the British Red Cross.

Sir Ranulph would probably argue that the only limits are those we set ourselves but everyone has their own ideas about what they consider to be realistically possible/impossible to achieve. Personally, I would like to run the marathon some day…and visit Everest, if only to base camp (I’m not very good with frostbite, avalanches, crevasses and discomfort).

All big challenges start with little ones though and when you push yourself outside your comfort zone even a little and achieve one thing, it makes the bigger challenges seem that much more possible.  In my book pretty much anyone can – with a bit of training – run 10 miles, for instance.

Tempted? Then there’s just about time (the deadline is Thursday) to sign up to the 10-mile Great South Run  in Portsmouth on 25 October. It’s one of the Red Cross’ many fundraising events. Who knows, 10 miles today…maybe the marathon (or Everest) tomorrow.  Or even a combination of the two – the Everest Marathon.

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Tags: challenge, endurance, fundraising, marathon

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Fundraising and events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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