News - Richard Dunwoody MBE
“He’s mad but you’ve got to admire someone who is giving up sleep and
effectively walking a marathon every day for 42 days for charity.”
Olympic swimmer Mark Foster
Ex Champion Jockey and Polar explorer Richard Dunwoody MBE announces his ‘1000 Mile Challenge’ this week.
Starting on 29th May at 11.30pm and finishing on 10th July at approx 2.30pm Richard will attempt to walk ‘1000 Miles in 1000 Hours for 1000 Guineas’ – walking 1 mile in EVERY hour for 1000 CONSECUTIVE hours – that’s 24 miles in 24 hours (almost a marathon a day) for 42 days and nights, with only one hour and 15 minutes sleep possible at any one time – if he walks back to back miles in different hours.
He will do this in Newmarket, staying in the Bedford Lodge Hotel and walking the same mile 999 times, with the last mile on Newmarket racecourse, up the home straight just before the Darley July Cup.
This challenge was first done in Newmarket 200 years ago in 1809 by Captain Barclay for a 1000 Guineas bet and it was hailed as ‘one of the greatest human feats ever attempted’, but Richard is replicating it to raise a substantial sum for his charities - Alzheimer’s Society, Racing Welfare, SPARKS, and Spinal Research.
In doing so, Richard aims to set an example to the nation to promote Walking the Way to Health, raise much necessary charity funds during tough economic times, as well as promote sport in the build up to the 2012 Olympics. Famous faces will join Richard along the way and the University of Ulster will conduct an important physiological and psychological study into how the body copes with such a super test of human endurance.
Richard says: “My South Pole expedition last year was tough, but this might take it to a completely different level! 42 days with very little sleep could drive me to breaking point, but we’ve set ourselves an ambitious fund-raising target…and that’s what this challenge is about.”
“Richard Dunwoody really IS Mr Incredible. His fundraising efforts over the years have been tremendous and we thought it would be tough to ‘cap’ trekking to the South Pole.
But the ‘1,000’ miles walk does just that…you feel exhausted just thinking about it! It’s so typical of Richard - a man for whom no challenge is too big or too bizarre to take on.”
Sparks co-presidents Gabby and Kenny Logan
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