HELP HAITI - Measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale, it was the biggest and most destructive earthquake in 200 years.  Thousands of people have been killed and the damage will affect the lives of millions of people. Save the Children have over 200 staff on the ground in Haiti, responding to the earthquake and have more emergency specialist teams on the way.  Please give generously to help the people of Haiti.

On April 1st (oh the irony!) we will be travelling to Morocco to take part in the Marathon des Sables (MdS).  The MdS is billed as 'The toughest foot race on earth' - it covers 155 miles over 6 days.....through the Sahara Desert.....carrying all your food.......5 litres of water a day........in fact everything you need to be self sufficient (about 10kg in total)......we even have to carry an anti-venom pump!  The distance covered each day varies but the longest is 56 miles, many competitors taking well over 20 hours to complete this stage as the temperatures regular hit over 40c (104F for the Americans amongst you).

So why are we doing it?  Well, we've both run a number of marathons and we felt it was time for a bigger challenge.  We've been preparing for this event for almost 2 years now - admitedly a lot of that 'preparation' has been spent discussing important issues like how many toilet rolls to take, but it still counts as preparation.  We have been putting the hours in on the road though and the local physiotherapist is doing good business due to our many niggling injuries.  One of the biggest decisions we've had to make was chosing a charity to run for.  There are so many worthwhile charities and it was really tough deciding which one to choose.  We finally decided on Save the Children - we spoke with them directly and were really impressed with the work they do and the difference our fundraising could make. 

£10 will feed 75 kids during an emergency

£29 can buy 40 chickens to help a family provide for themselves in the future (they cost £3.99 each in Tesco, so this is a real bargain!)

£50 buys a kit with non-food items (NFIs) such as blankets, pots, matches etc, which will support a displaced family in areas such as South Sudan

£100 can buy 50 anti-malaria drug dosages for 50 people in Angola

£250 can build one pre-primary school in Bangladesh 

If you'd like to know more about the charity, then please visit their website - www.savethechildren.co.uk

So, that's the MdS part of our challenge, but we're not done - you'll notice our challenge is called '10 in 2010'.  Our aim is to complete 10 marathons in 2010 - the MdS counts as 6 (give or take a mile or two) and we're then doing another 4 marathons throughout the year; finishing with Berlin on the 26th Sept.  Probably the marathon we're most looking forward to is the London Marathon on April 25th - this is just two weeks after we've travelled back from Morocco.  Hopefully the blisters will have healed and we can really enjoy the day on 'home turf' - we're hoping that many of you that have sponsored us will be able to come out and cheer us on.

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