New challenge: Handbike marathons
To promote and raise funds for Sports PTB, the Spanish sports association for little people, I’ve decided to take on a new sporting challenge: to be the shortest person ever to finish a marathon. However, on a handbike!
And not just any marathon, but the most iconic marathon in Europe, the Berlin marathon.
The story behind the challenge
Why marathons? And why on handbike? I have always felt a special appeal for long distance athletics sporting events, at the Olympics, and also for cycling events, like the Tour de France. I’ve always admired the sceneries where they take place, the passion that overflows and the feeling of running fast driven by your own effort. But neither running nor cycling has ever been my forte, so these events always felt too far away from me.
After returning from World Dwarf Games and creating Sports PTB, with Carles, my coach and friend, we were looking for a new project to raise awareness for little people and the association. It was not easy, but when the word marathon entered the conversation, even if it may have seemed far-fetched, I knew that we had found it.
With imagination, almost anything is possible, so by combining two of my dreams that, as a kid, I saw on TV, this new challenge of charity races was born.
Planning
The project starts from scratch. These are the steps that we are going to take in order to have the best chance of achieving it:
- Find sponsorships to buy and adapt a custom handbike.
- Getting familiar with the handbike and beginning the training.
- As part of the conditioning, we will perform a stress test and also a test of generation of lactate that will help us determine the best pace for us while doing aerobic exercise (i.e. the marathons).
- Lots of training.
- First prep races. Step by step, several popular races of 5km, 10km, half marathons and one or two marathons before attempting our goal marathons.
- In these prep races, we will put stands with information to raise awareness and raise funds for Sports PTB.
- More training.
- Register to the Berlin Marathon held in September.
- Begin the marathon.
- Reach the finish line!
Sponsorship
Companies, organizations or individuals interested in sponsoring the project can see the media coverage that I got in previous projects by looking at the Media section.
For more details, please contact me. Thank you!
