Thanks for taking the time to visit this page. 

The Story...

This is all about my desire to put something back into the world that I'm blessed to be a part of by raising some money for deserving causes. 

My Mum would describe it as my latest piece of "lunacy" and on the surface it does sound a bit daft. However, I sincerely hope you'll see it for what it really is e.g. a genuine effort to help others less fortunate than myself. 

The overall plan is to actually raise money for 3 deserving causes that are all very near and dear to me. 

This page is for The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity.

There's a page teamed to this Just Giving Account for my 2nd cause The Moor House School in Oxted, Surrey. This provides specialist schooling and therapy for those with language and hearing difficulties. Help children and young adults feel understood and appreciated which is I feel a basic human right. 

The 3rd is a late edition following the death this week of Mark Toh, a very dear friend of mine here in Malaysia. His family are raising money for a good cause here through this link gogetfunding.com/donation-in-mark-tohs-name

My intention, as far as possible is to donate 3 equal amounts to these equally deserving causes. That's what I have done with personal donations to kick each cause off with of MYR888 (circa $207USD/£161GBP).  

There's no need for you to donate so much but if you could help me by giving to all three that would be fantastic. 

That said, if you have a personal preference to support a particular one that is OK too as my intention will be to personally top each contribution up so that they each receive roughly the same amount.

So why have I chosen The Royal Marsden Charity. The reason for this is because this is where my Mother was fortunate enough to be treated in her two battles with cancer. As importantly, cancer is a dreadful disease that all of us in some way or another have been impacted by and as a world leading institution in the treatment of cancer it is a place that does and will do much more to help the world deal with this awful disease rather than just my Mother.   

More details about this amazing place and the talented people that work there can be found here...

https://www.royalmarsden.nhs.uk

https://www.royalmarsden.org

What's the Challenge...

Not being terribly talented at anything other than having a decent threshold for pain & perseverance, courtesy of the copious amounts of stupidity and stubbornness that I have been blessed with, doesn't make it that easy for me to put a "ding" in the universe. 

However, thanks to the generosity and trust of the people in my network, I have discovered that by doing some long distance endurance events I've been able help generate money to help other deserving causes. In the past, I have used the Ironman Triathlon (3.8km swim, 180km bike & a 42km run) and an 100km Ultra Trail Run to do this for the Salvation Army and a community running project called Care to Run. Some of you may remember these rather entertaining videos from the  little adventure running up, down and around Kota Kinabalu in Sabah a few years back...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCVK8rD1-Dg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG93eqCxXyY

As a result, in order to try and prise some cash from your wallets again I realise that I really need to raise the bar and do something a little different this round and this is what Project Triple 8 is all about...

Firstly, let's tell you what it isn't. It isn't a 1 day adventure, it involves 7 (pretty full on) days. Neither is it going to cover 100km, or 226km., It'll involve 888km. Hence the Triple8 title.

Here's how it's going to work...

On 26 August at 7:30am (possibly with a few other certifiably insane people) I will start to run across Malaysia. I will have 120 hours (5 days) until 7:30am on 31 August to complete this (Google says it can be walked in 97 hours although this doesn't involve stopping for anything) and once it is done, I will jump (most likely gently place myself) on my bike and cycle back the same 444 kilometres. 

For more information on the route and the running event, that is known as "Coast to Coast" or "C2C" you can go to the link below...

http://endurancenature.com.my/index.php/coast-2-coast/ 

You'll notice that this event does not mention anything about the biking back bit though. There's a good reason for this and that reason is that this bit of the challenge has been added by me. 

My rationale is not that I think that running 444 kilometres is too easy.  It's actually going to be brutally hard. Instead, it's to counter the brilliant sense of humour of my friend Ng Seow Kong, who is one of the founders of Endurance Nature and, probably, Malaysia's most iconic Ultra runner, who is the creator of this event. 

You see, he's chosen a route that measures 444 kilometres because according to the Chinese community around the world, the number 4 is considered as a symbol for the word "death". This is because when you say the number 4 (in Chinese) it sounds like the word for "die", (so long as you pronounce it properly that is, which I struggle to do ;-). 

This is taken so seriously in this part of the world that elevators have the 4th floor designated as "3A" or is completely missing!! So having an event measuring a distance of 444 kilometres is an inspired bit of branding as it means to die 3 times ;-) and having just run 33.3km as my 1st training run yesterday for this great adventure. I know that this will most definitely be the case in terms of how my knees are going to feel on this journey.

On the other hand though the Chinese community similarly considers the number 8 to be very lucky for pretty much the same reasons (you can verify this here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Numerology) and that triple 8 is the most fortuitous of numbers in terms of wealth creation. Interestingly it has some similar significance in the world of mathematics and apparently Christianity too (as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/888_(number) confirms) 

As a result, in an effort to avoid the curse of doing a route that means to die three times I have added the return journey by bike so that... 

a) I don't have to be off from work for more than a week, and; 

b) the 888 kilometres can give the journey a meaning of "triple fortune".

It also happens to have a lovely synergy with the number of kilometres I must run each day in order to not get cut off and make it to the finish line e.g. 444/5 = 88.8 :-) 

The Call to Action...

Please make a donation to this and my other causes

All donations whether based on a figure related to the number 888    e.g. a flat figure of MYR/$ or £'s or a multiple of "x" sen/cents or pence or, if you are feeling really generous, Ringgit, Dollars or Pounds for every kilometre of the journey OR some other totally random set of other digits or singular digit that feels appropriate for you, your support will be most gratefully received and very much appreciated. 

In return for these donations as well as receiving, as confirmed by a recent Harvard Business School study "a similar relationship to subjective well-being as a doubling of household income"!! (sourced from Arianna Huffington's great book called Thrive on page 239). You will also receive on top of this, insights into my preparation, my plan and my progress courtesy of the latest gadgets that I'll be engaging the help of along the way and posting on Strava, Facebook etc.

Many thanks in anticipation of this support and for proving the increasing belief that I have in the world as I understand it, that in spite of all of its faults, this world and your presence in it are truly awesome.

Luv n Hugz in our journey to Live More

Dave

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