2003 Devizes to Westminster Kayak Ultramarathon 2003 - a 127 mile race finishing under Westminster Bridge. Finished 14th / 60.

2004 Devizes to Westminster Kayak Ultramarathon 2004 - finished 9th / 57. 2005 Climbed Mount Kinabalu on the island of Borneo, the highest mountain in South East Asia at 4095m. 2005 Climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, the "Roof of Africa" - 5095m via Shira Route. 2006 Won Gold in 4+ and Silver in VIII at the BUSA Rowing Championships 2008 Completed the Atacama Crossing - a 160 mile ultramarathon accross the driest desert on earth. At 21 I became the youngest individual competitor to do so, raising £4000 for Facing Africa. 2008 Ironman UK - finished in 13 hours, 48 minutes. 2.5 mile swim, 112 mile cycle, 26.2 mile run.

The concept is very similar to the Atacama Crossing – a multi-stage, self sufficient ultramarathon. This is slightly shorter at about 130miles (about 5 marathons in 7 days). This is shorter simply due to the fact that moving in this environment is so dangerously energy sapping that it simply wouldn't be possible to complete much more. Again, as I said, this is a self-sufficient, staged race - 6 stages over 7 days. The stages vary from just 15km to 85km. I will be carrying food for 7 days and hammocks, clothes and tons of anti-spider spray. There will, again, be an overnight double-marathon stage of a whopping 55miles. Chances of getting lost and not coming home? Pretty strong!

To get to the start of the race, I'm going to have to take 3 or 4 different flights and then a boat trip up the Tapajos river – a tributary of the Amazon. So it’s a massive journey just to get to the start. Once there, I will have a day of jungle training from a Brazilian Army Officer - apparently he will tell me what to do if I encounter a spider the size of my head...although I already know – run like hell. He'll also go into what to do if you get lost and how to survive if you have to spend a night in the jungle on your own. Bloody hell.

The number of obstacles standing in my way is mind-blowing. The jungle itself – temperatures will hover around 40°C, humidity at a pleasantly sticky 100%. This race does not take place on a trail either. This is virgin rainforest...tackling the many swamps and river crossings (one river crossing is 400m – that’s fully kitted out) along with the sheer density of vegetation will be an awesome challenge. Then, certainly worse in my eyes, there are the inhabitants of the jungle. Everything, it seems, is out to eat you! Even the flora has a taste for meat. Anaconda, piranha, cayman, wild pigs, scorpions, hornets, vicious wasps and biting ants, to name a few. Then there are the bloody spiders. I hate spiders. The Amazon happens to be the chosen habitat for the world’s largest at over 30cm diameter...great. The resident which seems to put most people off is the jaguar. Jaguars are nocturnal and the 85 km stage runs through the night! The Candiru fish (aka Toothpick fish) is also present in the Amazon – this is the fish which most of you will know of as swimming up the urethra and whn there refusing to budge... you get what I mean!

Another harsh reality is that I shall be wet for an entire week. Even if not fully submerged in bogs or rivers, I will be sweating so much that it's impossible to stay dry. Severe blisters will not even register if some of the other “very real possibilities” occur – malaria, yellow fever and trench foot, for instance.

I truly believe this is a pretty large step up from the Atacama, which is great and exactly what I am looking for, but with that is the daunting reality that the jungle is genuinely dangerous and incredibly intimidating. Compared with the Atacama Crossing's percentage of finishers, at 80%, the jungle marathon sees between 60-65% of competitors crossing the finish line. Says it all really! No wonder the Jungle Marathon has already been given the title as “The Most Dangerous Race On Earth”.

Now most of you will probably think I am doing this because I'm a masochist and love the pain...which I do to a certain extent...but this is really another opportunity to raise a (hopefully!) fantastic amount of money for charity. I was touched with all your generosity last time when, for the Atacama, I got £4000 together, and then another £1000 for the Ironman. My aim may be ambitious, but I really want to raise £10,000 over these 2 years, so for the Jungle Marathon, the aim is £5000.

Due to the financial climate, I realise it will be a lot more of a challenge to raise money this year than last. So I will be making more effort. I have already been in touch with local radio stations who will be spreading the word nearer the time. I am also arranging to run a marathon on a treadmill in the centre of Exeter in all my gear, maybe with bin bags on to replicate the amount of sweat I'll pour in the jungle....obviously with someone next to me explaining what the hell I'm actually doing! I will also hope to be one of the first to complete the 3 peaks (the highest peak in England, Scotland and Wales) cycling in between the mountains. I'm also learning to play the guitar so a bit of busking perhaps...?!

I have thought long and hard about charities I would love to raise money for. My trail of thought has been towards charities which I haven't supported before. I also thought you might all be slightly more willing to part with your beloved dosh if I were doing it for something different. But when it comes down to it, I am so passionate about the work that Facing Africa does, that I kept coming back to them – I can't think of a better cause for donations to go towards than giving a severely disfigured child a second chance of a decent life.

NOMA is an acute and ravaging gangrenous infection of the face The victims of NOMA are mainly children under the age of 6, caught in a vicious circle of extreme poverty and chronic malnutrition. The main obstacles of treating NOMA are its presence in the poorest communities and societies with little or no access to front-line healthcare centres, let alone hospitals. The acceleration of NOMA from its initial form to death is so rapid that few victims reach treatment facilities in time. There are probably some 14,000 survivors each year, most of whom will be grotesquely disfigured for the rest of their lives, which invariably results in social exclusion and immense stress. A small boy of 8 was recently asked why he was so happy and smiled all the time soon after facial reconstruction had been completed. His answer was short and simple "I will now be able to play with my friends". Another child answered "because I will now be able to drink my milk through a straw". These heart-warming answers may seem trite to the average person living a normal life in the western world, but they have a profound sensitivity in a small and remote village in sub-Sahara Africa.

Reconstructive facial surgery is one thing when carried out in a well-equipped and well-staffed hospital with adequate financial resources. The facial reconstruction of a NOMA victim is both complex and time consuming and requires very special skills. Such surgery is neither available nor accessible in the countries where NOMA is prevalent. The cost of bringing one NOMA victim to Europe for facial reconstruction costs about £40,000 whereas similar treatment in a local hospital costs about £800. Imagine, a new face and a new life for £800.
So you can see that your money last time would have genuinely saved the lives of 5 or 6 children. They would have died if you had not donated so generously.

So if you do nothing else today, olease please take the time to just watch this 9 minute video and actually SEE the difference your donation could make – imagine being responsible for helping some of these children:

Play video

I just hope that, through doing it for Facing Africa, you understand that I am doing it for them not because I'm too lazy to think of anyone else, but because the fact of the matter is that when I am crawling through mud, being chomped on by an anaconda with a fat spider sitting on my face, I will only be able to keep going if I know the cause I'm supporting is something I really care about.

I have a very similar page as before, where you can go online and make a donation of however much you want quickly and safely. Otherwise, cheques can be sent to my home address either in Tisbury or Exeter. Or I can arrange bank transfers if you rather. Or cash of course!
Here is the link to the online sponsorship page:

Go to sponsorship page

One point I would like to make: To enter this race, it costs me £1600, flights to Brazil will be around £800 and equipment about £200. So this endeavor will cost me about £2600 of my own money. Now, if any of you would like to contribute any of your donations towards some of these expenses, that'd be fantastic as I wouldn't be able to raise money at all if I didn't fork this money out myself. Or if you would rather a percentage of your donation, perhaps, to go towards these costs, just let me know – it'd be very gratefully received!

As a final little extra incentive: if you give a donation of £20, you will have the opportunity to have a guess at how long you think I will take to complete the entire race (the time I will actually be running – make a guess down to the nearest minute). As a hint – of the 53 men who finished last years race, the guy who came 30th did it in about 50 hours. So donate £20 and have a guess at how long you think I will take and whoever guesses closest will win an almighty £100!!!!! Yes, £100!! WOW. Obviously, if you donate £40, you get 2 guesses and so on.