A Colby man is to run in a 160-mile race in the desert for charity.
Oliver Walker, aged 25, who went to Buchan School, will compete in the Marathon Des Sables, dubbed the ‘toughest footrace on earth’, from Friday (April 8) to Monday, April 18, in the Sahara Desert in Morocco.
On average the course works out to be a marathon a day for six days, although the fourth stage is a gruelling 50 miles long.
He is running the race for children’s charity Hope for Children, which is involved in projects across Africa, Asia and the UK to educate, make healthy and empower the lives of disadvantaged children.
Oliver now lives in London, working as an insurance broker, but his parents Charlotte and Paul still live in Colby.
Growing up in the island Oliver was a keen fencer and won a fencing scholarship to Harrow School.
He said: ‘I signed up to the Marathon Des Sables without ever having run a marathon. Over the last 12 months I’ve completed the Paris and Athens marathons.
‘After Christmas I upped my training to around 50 miles per week on average. This has included the Pilgrim’s Challenge, a two-day 66 mile race through Surrey and the Green Man Ultra, a 30 miler around Bristol.
‘The Marathon Des Sables is self-supported except for water. I will be given approximately 11 litres a day and shelter (a bivouac). This means that I will have to carry my food and camping gear which will weigh roughly 8-9kg.’
Oliver says that the temperature on the course has registered 50 degrees celcius in the past.
During one of the previous races an Italian man got lost for 10 days in the desert before being rescued by a nomadic tribe in Algeria.
Oliver continued: ‘As the race draws closer I am doing less running and more acclimatisation work to prepare for the heat out in the desert.
‘This includes sessions of Bikram yoga at 45 degrees. Furthermore I have also overhauled my previous typical desk jockey diet with a vegetable based one which has helped me to lose close to 10kg.’
Oliver says that there will be around 1,200 people participating in this year’s race, with around 300 coming from the UK.
Speaking about the charity, which was founded by an ex-employee of Save the Children, he said: ‘They focus on providing children and their parents with the tools to enable them to help themselves rather than a simple hand-out.
‘The staff at Hope for Children are incredibly generous, enthusiastic and very genuine and I would like to help them as much as I can with their cause.’
You can support Oliver in his fundraising by visiting mds2016.everydayhero.com/uk/oliver
Read more about the charity at www.hope-for-children.org