On the 5th of April I will depart for Marathon Des Sables.

One of the toughest foot races of all time.

250km over 7 days in the Sahara desert running in 50 degree heat.

I am doing this event to challenge myself but also to raise funds for an amazing non profit. Bloody Good Period is a London based organisation that is on a mission to end period poverty. As a Gynaecologist I am particularly passionate about this topic and the fantastic work they are doing.

Periods cost women 4,800 pounds in a life time

21% of the population live below the poverty line

10% of women cannot afford to buy sanitary products

49% of girls are absent from school due to periods

64% of girls self exclude from PE due to periods.

To find out more visit the BGP website and follow on instagram

https://www.bloodygoodperiod.com/

MdS is a truly gruelling multi-stage adventure through a mythical landscape in one of the world’s most inhospitable environments – the Sahara desert. You have to be self-sufficient and carry all your own food and equipment for the week on your back. Communal goat’s-hair Berber tents are pitched every night but, apart from that you have to take it with you. Water is rationed and if you exceed the ration, you get a time penalty. In just six days you will run over 250km (156 miles) through endless dunes, over rocky jebels, and across white-hot salt plains. The sun will be your constant enemy with temperatures regularly reaching 50 centigrade. The sand will be your constant companion, clouds of it under your feet, sheets of it stinging your eyes and lots of it chafing where it shouldn’t. The long stage has become a legend in itself. You will run out of a Saharan morning, into the dusk and then the dark, many not finishing the 80+km (52 miles) till well into the next day. Your feet will swell, crack and bleed under the pressure and the heat.