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'While we're in China, we decided to give something back'
By Sam Riley |
January 14, 2009, Wednesday
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THE Australian principal of a school in Wuxi is training for a Sahara Desert marathon that he hopes will raise money to build a school in remote Gansu Province, writes Sam Riley.
It is early evening in Wuxi of neighboring Jiangsu Province, and the locals have gathered to watch what is a regular but continually mystifying sight - an expat runner scrambling up a huge pile of sand and rocks.
The 44-year-old man doing laps up this enormous mound of broken bricks and sand on a construction site is Australian runner and school principal Reinier Jessurun, and he is training for one of the world's most grueling endurance events.
Jessurun, who heads Wuxi's Etonhouse International School, will compete in the Marathon Des Sables, a six-day 243-kilometer marathon through the Sahara Desert, where runners are required to carry all their supplies.
Runners start each leg at 9am each morning and brave temperatures that climb as high as 50 centigrade, covering the equivalent of five and a half marathons in six days.
Saying even his wife thinks he is crazy for attempting such a feat, Jessurun describes himself as a "happy amateur who occasionally likes to explore the more extreme side of human endurance."
"My wife thinks I am totally mad and she reckons I am absolutely loopy and should be locked up in the loony bin, so it makes for interesting dinner conversation at times," he jokes.
Jessurun's motivations for taking on the searing heat of the Sahara Desert, however, are altruistic as he hopes to raise enough money to help build a school in a poor area of China's western Gansu Province.
"While we are in China, we decided that we want to give something back," he says.
Jessurun's interest in pushing his body to the limits began when he was just 14 years of age and rode his pushbike more than 1,000 kilometers from Sydney to Melbourne.
He has competed in marathons and Ironman Triathlon in New Zealand, Germany, America, Australia and Asia.
Describing the Marathon Des Sables as "nothing short of lunacy," Jessurun says he will need to drink an average of 19 liters of water a day to complete a race that claimed the life of one runner.
After covering an average of 33 kilometers a day over the first three days, the competitors take on their toughest leg on the fourth day. That 82-kilometer leg (almost equal to back-to-back marathons) can take runners up to 24 hours to complete.
While the cold winter of Wuxi has not been the best training climate for the Sahara, Jessurun has managed to replicate the different terrains the race will cover.
"It is fairly challenging in the Wuxi area. There are a couple of really large building sites and they have chewed up all the earth and it almost simulates a desert environment, so I will run up and down that for an hour," he says.
"That simulates the type of rocky sandy-type terrain that is one of the facets of the Sahara Desert. You have a range terrain from the sand dunes, this type of rocky terrain, which they say is the hardest on your feet and ankles, and then there is really hard-packed salt lakes," says the Aussie.
Jessurun's training regime consists of running four times a week. During the weekdays he braves the chilly Wuxi evenings to run for between two and three hours and then does a longer five-hour run on the weekends.
Jessurun will be among about 700 competitors when the event starts in late March. He was drawn to endurance events because he wanted to test himself to limit, he says.
"I like the endurance-type activities, be it running or cycling or swimming, because I like testing myself physically. I have always been fascinated by what is the limit to one's physical potential.
"Plus, I like to keep reasonably fit," he smiles.
Jessurun and Etonhouse want to raise US$4,500 to build the new school and are seeking donations from individuals and corporations.
Anyone interested in donating to Jessurun's effort can contact the school at 0510-8522-5333 and ask for Tony Valentine, or e-mail to tony.valentine@etonhouse-wx.com. All donations are fully accounted for and tax deductible.
It is early evening in Wuxi of neighboring Jiangsu Province, and the locals have gathered to watch what is a regular but continually mystifying sight - an expat runner scrambling up a huge pile of sand and rocks.
The 44-year-old man doing laps up this enormous mound of broken bricks and sand on a construction site is Australian runner and school principal Reinier Jessurun, and he is training for one of the world's most grueling endurance events.
Jessurun, who heads Wuxi's Etonhouse International School, will compete in the Marathon Des Sables, a six-day 243-kilometer marathon through the Sahara Desert, where runners are required to carry all their supplies.
Runners start each leg at 9am each morning and brave temperatures that climb as high as 50 centigrade, covering the equivalent of five and a half marathons in six days.
Saying even his wife thinks he is crazy for attempting such a feat, Jessurun describes himself as a "happy amateur who occasionally likes to explore the more extreme side of human endurance."
"My wife thinks I am totally mad and she reckons I am absolutely loopy and should be locked up in the loony bin, so it makes for interesting dinner conversation at times," he jokes.
Jessurun's motivations for taking on the searing heat of the Sahara Desert, however, are altruistic as he hopes to raise enough money to help build a school in a poor area of China's western Gansu Province.
"While we are in China, we decided that we want to give something back," he says.
Jessurun's interest in pushing his body to the limits began when he was just 14 years of age and rode his pushbike more than 1,000 kilometers from Sydney to Melbourne.
He has competed in marathons and Ironman Triathlon in New Zealand, Germany, America, Australia and Asia.
Describing the Marathon Des Sables as "nothing short of lunacy," Jessurun says he will need to drink an average of 19 liters of water a day to complete a race that claimed the life of one runner.
After covering an average of 33 kilometers a day over the first three days, the competitors take on their toughest leg on the fourth day. That 82-kilometer leg (almost equal to back-to-back marathons) can take runners up to 24 hours to complete.
While the cold winter of Wuxi has not been the best training climate for the Sahara, Jessurun has managed to replicate the different terrains the race will cover.
"It is fairly challenging in the Wuxi area. There are a couple of really large building sites and they have chewed up all the earth and it almost simulates a desert environment, so I will run up and down that for an hour," he says.
"That simulates the type of rocky sandy-type terrain that is one of the facets of the Sahara Desert. You have a range terrain from the sand dunes, this type of rocky terrain, which they say is the hardest on your feet and ankles, and then there is really hard-packed salt lakes," says the Aussie.
Jessurun's training regime consists of running four times a week. During the weekdays he braves the chilly Wuxi evenings to run for between two and three hours and then does a longer five-hour run on the weekends.
Jessurun will be among about 700 competitors when the event starts in late March. He was drawn to endurance events because he wanted to test himself to limit, he says.
"I like the endurance-type activities, be it running or cycling or swimming, because I like testing myself physically. I have always been fascinated by what is the limit to one's physical potential.
"Plus, I like to keep reasonably fit," he smiles.
Jessurun and Etonhouse want to raise US$4,500 to build the new school and are seeking donations from individuals and corporations.
Anyone interested in donating to Jessurun's effort can contact the school at 0510-8522-5333 and ask for Tony Valentine, or e-mail to tony.valentine@etonhouse-wx.com. All donations are fully accounted for and tax deductible.
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