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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 FIVE COMPLETED!!

And I thought that the Comrades Race was going to be the toughest of the lot!!

When they say you should spend the two weeks after a conventional marathon resting up I think they meant it and this was really something I should have thought about before trying to take on another full length marathon so soon after an 87km race.

The undulating forest circuit was a real test for me and in the latter stages of the race the fatigue that was in my legs came through to show its ugly face and my race pace slowed considerably.

My final time of 4hrs 46mins was a good half an hour slower than any of the marathons i've been in before and hopefully won't happen again!

Bad news on the Victoria Falls marathon in August too, its been cancelled due to the situation within Zimbabwe leaving my the task of finding another race to compete in on my trek north up the east coast of the African continent. Once I find one I'll update this page with the latest information.

Ben - Afritrex