Book Review
Rama Gaind
By Rama Gaind
PS News Books

Pole to Pole
   By Pat Farmer (Allen & Unwin, $32.99, softcover, 311 pages)

Pat Farmer, ultra-marathon athlete, motivational speaker and former Australian politician, “lives to run”—but more than that he runs to assist those in need.
   A praiseworthy effort was the epic adventure he undertook, running from the top of the world to the bottom, between April 2011 and January 2012.
   He successfully completed the world’s longest ultra-marathon, a ‘Pole to Pole Run’ from the North Pole to the South Pole, raising $100,000 for Red Cross International.
Pole to Pole by Pat Farmer.
Pole to Pole by Pat Farmer.
   Farmer ran through some of the most spectacular and compelling terrain on earth from the vast and glistening ice floes of the Arctic to the broad plains of the US and the tropical jungles of South America before reaching the “summit of my dreams at the bottom of the world.”
   The Pole to Pole diary records the highs and lows of this extreme athlete as he covered 21,000 kilometres running through some of the most unwelcoming places on earth.
   Finding that politics “frustrated” him, Farmer turned his energies to do something commendable after realising that “real poverty” existed in this world.
   He has worked to provide “some practical help” to raise awareness of the world’s poorest communities where vast numbers of the population don’t have clean sanitary conditions or fresh drinking water.
   The money he has helped to raise go towards building wells and providing clean sanitary conditions.
 Some frightening statistics reveal that every 15 seconds, a child passes away from a disease caused by lack of safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation or poor hygiene.  
 By creating “clean supplies of water and installing proper sanitation facilities—things we all take for granted in Australia—we can save lives”.
   The story of the veteran of numerous charitable runs is sure to motivate, astonish and encourage. “One man, 20 million steps” is quite a legacy!
Edition 328, 28 August 2012

To find out more about Rama Gaind click here.
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