J.J. Pedersen let’s go see the world
A blizzard of things has blown by in the last 48 hours, including a milestone run, a surprise shout out, priceless talent, heartwarming generosity, and jaw-dropping a capella. So basically life is going at a thousand miles a minute, which is how I like it. Let’s see if we can sum this up succinctly:
Milestone run
Latest milestone in the recent rounds of training was clocking 15km on sand with a 7.5 kg backpack. The conditions were perfect. That is to say, it was mid afternoon, the sun was at its blazing best, and the sand was dry and soft and very easy to sink into. Hurrah for desert-like conditions! The only thing to watch out for was the cute sandcastles.
Surprise shout out
Men’s Health picked up on all the noise we’ve been making about the Loof fund raiser, the lucky draw, and very helpfully linked to this site. Thanks, you guys! Also a special thank you to Chan HM, my colleague who’s been working behind the screens getting the word out to all her lobang in the media.
Priceless talent
If you’re looking at the Desert Party@Loof poster and wondering who on earth somehow managed to turn my race into a movie poster lookalike, you need to meet Adam “One Arm Runner”. Adam is pretty well known in the running circles here but he’s also a talented freelance graphic designer who has an inspiring story worth hearing about. Thank you for the awesome poster even though you already had the Danish Open Track and Field Championships on your plate. [Update: Adam went on to take Silver in the 100m and 200m sprint at the Danish Open!]
Heartwarming generosity
With one month left to the race, we’re still quite far off from our fund raising target of S$60,000. I still believe it can be done, but will just have to work harder at it. A huge, huge thank you to everyone who has donated within (and some, beyond) their means for my cause so far. Thank you also to every last one of you who has taken the time to leave messages on the the Sahara Facebook page. Every note is precious and very likely going to become sanity fuel during the race.
Also received a very touching letter today from my alma mater, Raffles Girls’ School, who has announced a donation of S$1,000 to VisionFund. So much of who I am today — the good and the incorrigibly bad — can be traced back to my education at RGS. So getting their support on this adventure meant a lot. From the bottom of my heart: thank you.
Jaw-dropping a capella
This has nothing to do with running but because amazing discoveries are best when shared, you should take a look at this gem if you haven’t yet. It’s already gone viral and if all goes well, it will be old news pretty soon. Absolutely unbelievable; it’s so good it doesn’t even sound like a capella anymore. Only gripe: why’s the song so short, Mike?!
