Islander set to take on the ‘toughest footrace on earth’
An ISLANDER is set to don his running shoes and take on an ultra-marathon challenge across the Moroccan Sahara.
James Le Gallez, operations manager at Redwood Group, took up running just two years ago to boost his fitness and got hooked.
‘I’ve never been active but I took up running during the second lockdown with running trends that were going viral and it picked up from there,’ he said.
‘It started in the February time. I completed my first half marathon on the 21st day and then did the Guernsey Marathon in the October.’
In May 2022 Mr Le Gallez did his first ultra marathon in the island.
He had known of the Marathon des Sables – a 250km six-stage race across the Moroccan Sahara, dubbed the ‘toughest footrace on earth’ – from a documentary released about 10 years ago.
It costs £4,000 just to enter and so he believed it would take years for him to be in a position to take on the challenge, until the Redwood Group absorbed the entry cost.
‘The training has taken over my life, but the support of friends, family and colleagues has really spurred me on,’ he said.
‘I think the toughest part will be the repetitiveness of the training, because you run out of places in Guernsey.
‘I am going to Jersey to do some there, and hopefully also France and Denmark and maybe the south of England.’
As part of a comprehensive training programme, he will take on several distance races in the Channel Islands and overseas in the run-up to April.
At the midway training point in November, he will take on the challenging Gun31 night trail race, entailing 2,300m of clifftop ascent.
Mr Le Gallez will also trek the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in the new year before undertaking several trail runs at altitude sites across Colombia and Peru.
During his peak weeks from February to March, training will see him exceed 100kms per week, and rack up 10 marathons in February alone.
To help acclimatise to the unforgiving 40-degree desert temperatures, Mr Le Gallez is preparing by spending a lot of time in saunas, undertaking hot yoga and layering up for runs to raise his body temperature.
He is aiming to raise £10,000 for three Channel Islands charities.
As well as Autism Guernsey and the Guernsey Society for Cancer Relief, he will also be fundraising for Jersey Hospice Care.
Donations can be made at www.justgiving.com/team/jlgmds.
Mr Le Gallez has also set up an Instagram account to track his progress which can be found at @fromtidestotrails.
