Ranulph Runs?

A footnote item in this month's mag suggests that Mike Stroud and Ranulph Fiennes are running a marathon together to raise money for charity in November. But didn't Sir Ranulph have a heart attack earlier this summer? Can he have recovered quite this quickly? If so, what an advert for running as therapy...but I'm guessing the article is erroneous? Anyhow - how is Britain's greatest living explorer doing? Don't the staff of RW have contact with him? Hope he's on the mend...

Comments

  • its true i believe

    and yes, he could have recovered in this time frame
  • peeps start cardiac rehab exercise classes - 6-8 weeks following a heart attack (depending on the severity and general health condition etc) and for someone who is very fit and active it wouldnt be unreasonable to build up to running again and to do a marathon - provided they were monitoring their fitness and intensity levels and not overtraining

    it is a great advert for what people can do after heart problems and evidence that exercise of any kind is an important part of physical rehabilitation
  • I think this is amazing if true! He didn't only have a heart attack (if that wasn't enough) but heart bypass surgery. This was around the middle of June. If he can run a marathon in November after that then I will be pleasantly astonished...
  • we see peeps who have had bypasses in the exercise classes - they can start 8 weeks after the op - the ld days of 3 months bed rest are long gone - the heart is a muscle too -

    but not to belittle Ranulphs determination to get back on the road
  • why not
    if he was fit before, hell get backquickly

    5 days in hozzie for an uncomplicated bypass
    2 weeks to get oer the anaesthetic
  • well its not just the one marathon is it (though that would be hard enough for some of us)

    but 7 marathons in 7 days
  • 7 marathons in 7 days on 7 different continents was what I read.

    Pretty impresive.
  • Yeah - I can't fathom it! Less than 6 months after a heart bypass. Of course Hippo and Bune I bow to your expert medical knowledge, and I'm sure the world have moved on in lots of ways. I just think, if it's correct, it's

    a] just hugely impressive
    b] inspirational
    c] a great potential feature article for RW!
  • absolutely ! most peeps wouldnt even contemplate it - let alone do it - but then ranulph has never exactly been a couch potato !!
  • he s quiet an experienced marathon runner I see

    btw he had his heart attack and bypass surgery on 8th June and left hospital on 12th June !
  • And he's lost some of his toes !!
  • sawed them off himself i think!!
  • Ran and Mike are doing the 777 marathon European leg from Windsor to White City on 31st October.

    About 40 of us Forumites have signed up so far to run with them - see thread on Events forum - and we have the 1st anniversary London Social in Piccadilly Circus afterwards.

    Everyone's welcome along, but you need to register for the run - entry to it and the Social afterwards is free.
  • Ranulph fines - what a legend. anyone read "The Feather Men" and or "The Secret Hunters" top books
  • Guess what?
    IM on call
    AGAIN!
    grrrrrrrrrr
  • and onncall for the Oct social
    heigh ho
    Off to work
  • LONDON (Reuters) - Four months after suffering a near fatal heart attack, intrepid explorer Ranulph Fiennes has announced a new challenge -- running seven marathons in seven days on seven continents.

    Fiennes, 59, and Dr Mike Stroud, 48, will start the challenge on October 26 in the wilds of Antarctica and, weather permitting, finish 168 hours later in New York's Central Park.

    After Antarctica, the two men plan to complete the 26.2 mile distance in Santiago, Sydney, Singapore, London and Cairo before arriving in New York to join the thousands of runners who will be contesting the city's annual marathon on November 2.

    The explorer and former special forces officer collapsed on June 7 and had emergency double-bypass heart surgery, prompting his doctors to set a heart-rate limit for each marathon of 130 beats per minute.

    "If the area of the post-op wound starts feeling ominously tight I will just have to slow down," Fiennes told Reuters on Friday.

    Fiennes -- who has already survived the torment of gangrene at the North Pole, dodged bullets in the Middle East, trekked across the Andes and canoed up the Amazon -- became one of the first men to reach both Poles on foot on his Trans-Globe Expedition in 1982.

    Eleven years later he and Stroud became the first men to cross the Antarctic unsupported on foot.

    A briefing note from Fiennes to LanChile airline highlights some of the problems they will face as they try to pass quickly through tight security at international airports in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

    "My colleague Dr Stroud will have some medical needles and scissors and scalpels in his hand baggage on all flights," he wrote to LanChile, Chile's national airline.

    "Could this please be cleared to go through security in a hurry? Also, because of my heart problems, Dr Stroud will carry a small defibrillator machine which security may think is a bomb. We cannot afford any delay".

    The two men will donate the money raised to the British Heart Foundation.
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