In February 2012, the seed was sown sitting in Neil Munro’s office, in addition to talking about work-related items, the topic of running and the search for the next challenge inevitably came up, then we started to behave like “cardio junkies” looking for the next hit.
Neil had watched the Dubai Marathon with broken ribs after breaking them upon playing football, while I had done my fourth Dubai Marathon in a row and had competed in my longest run ever: the 72.2km Wadi Bih Run in beautiful Oman. Neil mentioned that he had just entered the Polar Circle Marathon, I had heard about this marathon a few years back from a friend of mine in Ireland and it intrigued me straight away. We discussed that if we were both to do it, we should do it with a mission, and the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation was the organisation that came to both of our minds straight away. Neil and I then discussed this idea of helping the foundation by raising 50,000 USD, which was the target that we set ourselves; it essentially was the annual budget of the Sunshine School in Vietnam, a school built from scratch by CNCF that educates and does so much more for over 200 kids in Vietnam.
We met up with Gill O’Farrell from CNCF and told her of our intentions, and straight away, Gill was full of support. We then discussed many ideas of how to raise the fund at best.
Our first fundraising night was at Barasti at the Mina Seyahi on the 18th of April. Both Steve Thompson and Davvyd James, the former British and Irish Lions, were in attendance as ambassadors for CNCF. We did a raffle and raised over 1,500 USD. The rugby club that I coach, the Arabian Knights, have donated any excess money to CNCF; from day one, such has been the ethos behind the formation of the Arabian Knights over five years ago. We did another raffle at the end of season BBQ which raised over 2,000 USD. The Dubai Irish Golf Society (DIGS) then kindly offered to donate the money taken for the two return flights which was by provided by Emirates Airline towards Arctic Xtreme and CNCF. The next fundraising event was with the Voglia House & Garden store whose owner Rafik donated the profits from two agreed days to Arctic Xtreme, which generated over 5,000 USD.
The next major fundraiser that was due to take place was a week before we departed for Greenland. This with our wonderful friends at the Armani Hotel Dubai where we raised over 12,000 USD. Then two days before the marathon, through my great friend Shahriar from RIDE Bike Shop at Sheikh Zayed Road, we had reached our goal and the donations had been still coming in; in the end, we had raised 52,219 USD.
Setting off on the 17th of October on the Virgin Atlantic flight bound for London, we were both stepping into the unknown. Yes, we knew it was going to be cold. Yes, it
was going to be different, but we had run over twenty marathons and ultramarathons between us, how hard was it going to be?
On the 20th of October, just after 9:45 a.m. we were about to find out.
On the morning of the race, it was a lot colder than the previous two days and had dropped to -11. At the countdown in the start line, there were 130 cold runners from 30 different countries who set off like ants up the first hill in single file; the race had begun. We set off towards the ice cap glacier literally at the top of the world. We had to plough our way through six to eight inches of deep snow; our training in Ski Dubai hadn’t prepared us for this, it was like running on soft sand for the first 8km. But coming off the ice cap, the next 34km would be easier.
Despite the beautiful sunshine, trying to keep warm was an issue. But the scenery was truly amazing and we were indeed privileged to be in such and an amazing place in the Arctic Circle. At 33km, a runner from Greenland came up to me and said “fantastic that your still wearing your spikes but surely it would be a lot easier to run without them now” and I thankfully took them off and it was like running on air. Like any marathon, there will be moments when you really wonder “why the hell did I sign up for this?” but thankfully, we both kept one foot in front of the other and adopted the phrase I use to my kids when things aren’t going their way: to “dig in deep.”
I ended up finishing in 16th place overall and Neil got inside the first half as he had wished. It was definitely a hard marathon, and may even be the hardest marathon we both completed, but the 200 kids in Vietnam kept us motivated all the way through.
When the journey started at the beginning of 2012, so many friends, families, colleagues, clients have really supported us. Without their support, we would not have reached the important goal which was the 50,000 USD for the Sunshine School. One of the proudest moments was when along the way to Greenland, I got word that my daughter, Ava, had brought a copy of a magazine with a picture of Neil and me training in a freezer in Dubai to “show and tell” class. My proud daughter told the class how her dad and his friend had been training in this fridge to run a marathon in the Arctic for the kids of Vietnam who aren’t as lucky as us.
It’s been quite a remarkable journey since that day in Neil’s office. While sitting in Heathrow en route to Greenland, I read the post on the Arctic Xtreme’s Facebook page from Cristina Noble herself and the sincerity in her appreciation to us both, which made us two very proud individuals.
Published in November 2012
