Marathon Man II (Update)

Well I've been quite busy this past weeks, first spending more time with my 2 boys as a daily dad by bringing them at school and nursery the morning to making them lunch or going to the park to feed the birds (Terrell just loves that...) and to be honest I really enjoyed that time with them, when you spend most of your week at your office or on the road, having time with yours kids can be sometime a luxe and you forgot quite frankly that they are the one who suffer the most about our busy life....
One of the great thing about working for a company like IBM is the flexibility you have to work home during the week, which give you more time to spend with yours kids and let you enjoy be a daddy full time...

Anyway, this past weeks I had time to look around for my next challenge and after planning on running a marathon (New-York or London), I decided to challenge myself on a though adventure around the globe and raising money for a worldwide charity.
right now I'm looking at 2 different challenge :

The first one would to cross the Sahara from the snow capped High Atlas mountains of Morocco in the west, to the Red Sea coast 4800km to the East. Its landscape varies from a stony flat expanse to perfect wind blown sand dunes, broken only by the occasional oasis. The feeling of space and of solitude is awesome. With proud Berbers as our guides and a small caravan of camels to carry our supplies we will trek 100km through this varied and stunning landscape (Discovery Adventure)


The second one would bring to Nepal, a country in a league of its own with breathtakingly beautiful scenery, a fascinating culture and friendly people. The route will take us via the Sherpa capital of Namche Bazaar through beautiful valleys, dense forests and across glacial rivers before we reach the renowned viewpoint of Kalapatar, on the approach to Everest Base Camp, and see the highest mountain on the planet. We should also have time to explore the colourful and frenetic capital of Kathmandu (Doitforcharity)


As you can see this are 2 extreme challenge on the physical and mental side, and obviously I will need to raise the necessary amount of money to be part of it which is around £2200 for the Sahara Trek and over £3000 to flight to Nepal and challenge myself against the highest mountain in the world....

Right now I need to decide where to go and which charity to choose then start to prepare myself physically by going back to the gym and work on my stamina and my jump-shoot (I play basket-ball 3 to 4 time a week). I will have a check on my knees and ankles in 2 weeks, because of recurrent pain, and will probably start my workout in July. Both trip have available date for November 2008 which would give me enough time to be ready for it.

Last thing, I just wanted to send a quick hello to Grant McDermott who is actually in Lilongwe (Malawi), on his way to Cape town (South Africa) by bike from Cairo (Egypt) since last December, a six month trip with friends to help people along the way and raise money to support The Millennium Promise . I know he really enjoy his adventure and if you read this Grant, just wanted to say Thank you mate and see you soon....