Water advocate, injured, aims for 100 marathons in 100 days
johannesburg — Crazy, overwhelming, deeply exhausting.
Mina Guli , an Australian activist seeking to highlight global water shortages and encourage people to conserve, talks bluntly about her battle to complete 100 marathons in 100 days around the world.
Now in South Africa, the 48-yearold Guli is more than halfway through the punishing project, but she’s injured and a spokeswoman said on Wednesday that the runner will walk the rest of the marathons. That means about nine hours for each one.
“I’m struggling,” Guli said in a Dec. 30 telephone interview with AP after visiting Beaufort West, a town gripped by severe water scarcity.
Guli is the founder of Thirst, a non-profit group focused on teaching youth in China about sustainable consumption of water. She started her odyssey at the New York Marathon in November and has slogged through mud and sand and across cities in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
“It’s much heavier going than I had ever expected. I probably should have thought that through a little more,” Guli said cheerfully. She acknowledged that she doesn’t particularly enjoy running. She doesn’t get enough sleep or recovery time and sometimes starts a marathon right after getting off a plane.
For Guli, the marathon feat is a vehicle to raise awareness about pressure on water supply as populations and industries grow, as well as
the people who are struggling without enough water and those trying to find solutions.
She has visited areas afflicted by water shortages, stopping to talk to Uzbek fishermen at the shrinking Aral Sea and a village elder in India.
Her (hash)RunningDry campaign
touts the work of people including Ayman Rabi, head of a Palestinian NGO that focuses on water and sanitation; Eli Raz, an Israeli geologist who has documented sinkholes at the disappearing Dead Sea; and Hermella Wondimu, head of an Ethiopian NGO that provides clean drinking water to rural areas.