One Raidlight bag on the way.......AGAIN!

So have have told you how efficient the folks here at the Dubai postal services are that they have sent back my Raidlight backpack after it was only in the UAE for 1 week without informing me that the bag has arrived. Lesson learned......

Sue and the chaps at Likeys have posted a second 30 L bag and this is on the way now. They will refund the bag as soon as it has cleared customs in the Uk, thanks for the help guys. I would recommend Likeys to anyone who is looking for quality and variety. My first order arrived here within one week with everything I ordered.

Tomorrow morning I am heading the the French Consulate for my biometric and hopefully I get my visa shortly after that. Once the visas are sorted I`ll start packing and get my running kit. I have a bit to do still, shoes need to get velcro for the gaiters, need to have my medical exam done and back to the physio to let me know when I can start trotting again!

Two weeks till I leave for France, this dream is being reality very very fast! I am as ready as I can be, will not let anyone down.....Thank you to my lovely wife for putting up with me through all this, I owe you a big fat holiday on a beach somewhere!

Adam and Charlie!

One of my new favorite movies at the moment is the running documentary called - Running the Sahara - The documentary follows three runners that run across the Sahara in 111 days and what they experience on a day to day basis. The three runners are Kevin, Ray and Charlie Engle. Charlie inspired me the most out the three runners as I can identify with him as he is very strong minded and a natural leader. Charlie has overcome personal challenges such as a drug addiction and became a motivational speaker and adventurer runner. I would love to do something similar and will be planning to run a couple of Ultra`s over the next few years........

So when my legs start telling me it is time to get up and hit the road or when I am sleeping and dreaming of running my alter ego Charlie takes over! I will run the MDS with my alter ego Charlie and he will take over from me when the going gets tough and help me through the hard stages!

Suffering, cheerfully endured, ceases to be suffering and is transmuted into a ineffeable joy.

-GHANDI-

The Big Easy`s Autism Story

It is three years since our seven-year old son Ben was diagnosed with Autism. We’d suspected for a few years that something was wrong. I mean, there’s a process that every kid goes through. Crawl at nine months, walk at 12 months, and then start talking and so on. With Ben we started thinking: ‘Why is he not crawling? Why is he not walking? Why is he not looking me in the eye?’ Things like that. We soon discovered he was quite severely touched by Autism.

One in 150 children is affected by Autism and that was perhaps the most shocking thing about all of this; the number of people it affects. And you know, it hits the whole family hard. For a long time you are trying to figure out ‘What just happened to my life?’ You feel sorry for yourself and for your kid and for your family. And the tragedy is that even in this day and age, the kid who has Autism is often forgotten about. The feeling is that he’s almost a waste of time, which says a lot more about society than it does the child. It’s heartbreaking.

Ben’s condition was the main driving force behind our decision to relocate our base from Wentworth to West Palm Beach in Florida. The move has benefits for my golf, but more importantly we have been able to secure a more intensive form of therapy for Ben. And he’s doing great. He might act and say things a little differently from other kids, and he obviously has some difficulties, but he understands everything we say and is particularly in tune with our emotions; it’s almost like a sixth sense. And thank God he’s got such a nice nature. He’s a very friendly, very happy, very shy kid and the more loving attention he gets and the smiles that he sees, the better. Samantha, his older sister, is great with him.

Liezl and I are private people, but we are also very much in the public eye and we recognise that this gives us a platform to help raise funds and awareness for the causes of Autism and its possible treatments. It is something that we both feel very passionate about.

We established our Els for Autism Foundation in the Spring of 2009. My first goal was to help fund an Autism Center of Excellence, a model for the world of what should be done for children with Autism. The Center will include an educational program for children age 3-21, an on-site services component for doctors, speech therapists and other specialists, a continuing services program for adults, and for me, most importantly, a research facility where scientists can study what causes Autism and possible treatments for it. That’s just the beginning. In the coming months my foundation will also be funding cutting edge Autism projects at some of the best universities and research labs around the United States. I’ll keep you posted on progress.

Years from now people may remember me as a golfer and a major champion. But I’d like also to be remembered as somebody who took the issue of Autism and did something with it. The rest of my life, I’ll be fighting this thing…I hope you’ll join with me.