As many of you know, Jess doesn't like exercise. In fact, Jess would rather do a sponsored silence than run a half marathon, and anyone who knows her realises that would be almost impossible. Ben, meanwhile, hailed the completion of his recent six mile run for Sport Relief as if he had just done the Iron Man or run half way across Europe. He clearly has no sense of his own physical limits (or that his "lucky" pink headband won't be much use after 13 miles running around Oxford).
All this can only mean one thing. Signing up to the Oxford Half Marathon was a silly idea. Watching us try and complete it is going to be funny.
But why are we putting ourselves through it?
Well, as part of a round the world trip, we'll be working with The Kanga Project between October and December this year. The project is a small charity working in central Tanzania supporting women in their fight against gender discrimination, by providing educational and economic opportunities.
The Kanga Project funds educational programmes for women teaching skills in budgeting, leadership, literacy and business. They offer micro-loans and specialist training to women to promote financial independence, and also provide sponsorship opportunites for young women so that they can attend school.
We'll both be getting stuck in - Jess will be setting up a peer to peer mentoring network for women involved with the project's work, and Ben will be working to improve existing infrastructure by helping with the many building projects that are ongoing at the site. If we raise enough, there may even be the possibility of setting up a biogas cooking system at the school within which the project works, so that all of the students are guaranteed at least one hot meal during the school day.
If you can, please help us raise as much as possible for this fantastic charity. We both really appreciate all your support.
