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time

I will be attempting to complete the South Downs Way 100 mile (SDW100) ultra-marathon, a 100 mile foot “race” taking in the entire South Downs Way National Trail, travelling along the chalk ridgeway, starting just outside of Winchester, the capital city of Saxon England and heading due east until the trail ends in Eastbourne.

Some of you may remember that I completed the SDW 50 mile back in 2019, and you may also remember that I swore never to attempt anything as ridiculous again. Well here we are… 4 years later and apparently wiser, flipping from one muscle strain to another, returning to try and double down. Clearly time has blurred all memory of the toil that day.

Why again, I hear you ask? Very good question. Well it’s definitely “one of those years” in many respects, and I certainly wanted a challenge to really test the limit, but a more important motivation is to try and raise awareness and funds for a charity which sits very close to by heart, the Maruva Trust (https://maruva.org/about-us/).

In 2002, a close friend from university, Nicola Willis, left the UK for Africa with a goal of supporting communities to establish sustainable, effective responses to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support for children and adolescents across the continent. A few years later, and with the help of friends within our circle, the UK-based charity, Maruva Trust was born from which Nicola was able to partner with Africaid and its 'Zvandiri' programme in Zimbabwe with amazing results.

I have been a supporter of Maruva and the Zvandiri programme ever since and have seen the incredible and instant impact our fund-raising can make. Over the last 20 years, the Zvandiri programme has evolved from a single support group for 6 young people living with HIV in Zimbabwe in to a comprehensive model of community, clinic and digital health services in partnership with governments and operating in 11 countries across Africa. Their vision is to expand further to 20 countries by 2023 and to be able to deliver hope and happiness to 1 million young people living with HIV cross the continent.

For more information please see: https://zvandiri.org/

The race is on Sat 10th June, the training has been horrific, and the patience of my family has been truly tested, but hopefully will be entirely worth it to see what a real difference we can make collectively to all the young people that Maruva and Zvandiri helps to support.