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Welcome to Afritrex - A privately funded charity endurance challenge of marathons, mountains and more; documenting the encounters, obstacles and achievements of 12 months of hard fundraising and charity work across Africa.

Whilst circumnavigating the African Continent I will complete the following challenges:

To complete five marathons of at least 26 miles
To climb five of the highest mountains in Africa
To visit as many of the sites across Africa where the Victoria Cross has been won as possible (VC180 Challenge)

"The challenge to make every penny count"

Have a closer look at the site and find out more about how we'll be spending 2008.

Keep up to date !! - The action is happening as we speak...

Click here for the latest diary entry

Click here for the latest photos

Click here for the latest route

My name is Ben Southall and for the last decade I’ve travelled extensively throughout Southern Africa taking on projects and expeditions to test my abilities and discover exciting new areas of the African continent, whilst in the UK I take part in fitness and endurance events to raise money for charity and thought it was about time I combined the two fields to create my own fundraising expedition from with others could benefit.

So was born Afritrex: the logistical equivalent of one man trying to build spaghetti junction using Taiwanese instructions and a broken shovel.

The idea was simple: take one continent; attempt to circumnavigate it and whilst doing so try and stay fit enough to complete a number of endurance challenges to raise money for my chosen charities and whilst doing so post it all on the internet!

This is set to be the most challenging, exciting and exhausting year of my life, can I really do it?

"The answer is I don't know,

so why not find out!"

This is me Ben Southall and this is my mission throughout 2008. Stay in contact with my progress updates on how things are going through this site.

I’ll be keeping you informed of my progress through biweekly updates to the site, route information and with regular photo and video blogs.

CHALLENGE SIX COMPLETED!!

At 05:30hrs on Sunday 28^th September I reached the summit of Mount Kenya up at 4985 metres above sea level.

With my guide Robin I trekked nearly 30kms through forest, up onto moorland and finally the tricky scramble up the rocky escarpment at night at temperatures of -12°c to reach the trek-able summit of the second-highest mountain in Africa.

It provided an awesome training ground in preparation for the next of the challenges Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest of all Africa’s peaks at 5896m above sea level, which I start the ascent of on October 6^th.

This high altitude training should provide me with the all-important acclimatisation needed to stand any chance in the eighth of my challenges, the Nairobi Marathon, at the end of October.

I read that Haile Gebreselassie broke the world record for the marathon at the weekend with a time of just over 2hrs 3mins. See you at the start line then…..

Preparing for the next one,

Ben