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EXTREME adventurer David Grier is about to embark on his most challenging fundraising adventure yet, the Cipla Miles for Smiles Madagascar Challenge 2010.
With two world first runs under his belt – the 4200km Great Wall of China run in 2006 and last year’s 3300km southern African coastline run – Capetonian Grier will be facing his most physically demanding and daring extreme adventure yet.
Starting on November 29 in Pemba, Mozambique, the multi-discipline, four-month long event will see Grier attempt a 700km ocean paddle to Madagascar, then run about 3000km up the centre of the island to the northern tip of Madagascar before kite-boarding and paddling the entire distance back to South Africa.
He hopes to complete this by the end of next March.
“I decided on a multi-discipline event as I wanted to involve aspects that would challenge me in a different way,” Grier, 49, said yesterday.
“By including the paddle and kiteboard, I feel this will be my most difficult challenge yet as they are both relatively new sports to me, so I am going to have to dig really deep.”
The Cipla Miles for Smiles Foundation supports the non-profit surgical organisation Operation Smile SA, which facilitates free reconstructive surgery for underprivileged children born with cleft lips, palates and other facial deformities.
It costs about R5500 to surgically repair a child’s cleft lip.
Grier’s previous two world-first runs, with friend and fellow adventurer Braam Malherbe, raised R2,5-million for Operation Smile.
Last year, they set off from Oranjemund in Namibia and ran around Africa to end at Ponta D’ouro in Mozambique three months later.
In 2006, the two men became the first people in recorded history to run the length of the Great Wall of China in one attempt, taking 98 days to cover 4200km and making it possible for 55 children to receive surgery.
Grier, a chef and restaurant owner, also released books on his two adventures.
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