Meet Philip Waudby

A nice heart-warming story, whilst at the same time completely, mind blowingly Xtreme. Philip Waudby, a fifty-something year old Benoni Northern’s runner who is going to do the insane all in the name of charity and raising funds for the Sunflower Foundation. Philip will be running the Kalahari Augrabies Extreme Marathon (only 250km long), something he has done a few times in the past BUT this year he has decided he will run from his home in Benoni to the start of the marathon and then still run the entire marathon!!!
This crazy feat will see him covering more than 1188km.

Philip selected the Sunflower Foundation after his mom, Joan Waudby, passed away from Leukemia in 2002. Philip’s wife passed away a few weeks ago, so it is a cause close to his heart. Alison was his strongest supporter and was behind him all the way and would not want quit and is a great motivation for him

It will take Philip 12 days to run the 583.13 miles (933km) from Benoni Northern’s to Augrabies Falls Lodge starting on the 25th of September 2011. One and a half days after arriving at the lodge, Philip will begin the 250km 156.25 miles (250km) Kalahari Augrabies Extreme Marathon (www.extrememarathons.com) – drive home and then finish with a 3.13 miles (5km) run from home to Benoni Northern’s gates to complete the challenge.
So all in all it will be a total of 742.5 miles (1188km) in 19 days.

The Kalahari Augrabies Extreme Marathon is a self supporting marathon where the athlete must carry all of their own supplies in the form of food, sleeping bag etc. for the entire race in their back pack. The only item supplied to them by the race organiser is 1.5lt of water at 9 to 10km intervals (check points) and 5lt at the overnight stop. This is an international race and fully supported in every way including race doctor and medical team.

To date Philip has run the Augrabies marathon for The Red Cross Memorial Childrens Hospital for which he raised R30, 000.00, and twice for The Starfish Foundation for which he raised R50,000.00 each time.

The route Philip will follow is:

• Benoni to Carltonville
• Carltonville to Potchefsstroom
• Potchefstroom to Wolmaransstad
• Wolmaransstad to Schwiezer-Reneke
• Schwiezer-Reneke to Vryburg
• Vryburg to Kuruman
• Kuruman to Upington
• Upington to Aurgabies

Xtreme Trackers joined forces with Philip and has proudly sponsered a Personal Tracking Device that will allow the public to watch Philip’s daily progress at intervals as little as every 5 seconds live on the internet. The public can also phone Philip during designated times to talk to him as it is a hands-free unit.

Use the following number to contact Philip - 074 1190 293 during the designated times

or you can contact Philip on on his mobile - 083 715 6098

Ultra Trail Marathon World Champion, Ryan Sandes, recently sent this message to Philip: