Motorsport Trainathon NZ, 40 Hour Famine with a twist

[NAC]

New Zealand's Toyota Racing Series driver Alastair Wootten, 14 year old Mitch Evans (Formula Ford & Toyota Racing Series) & Jono Lester 19 year old Porsche GT3 driver will be doing their own 40 Hour Famine with a twist.

We have an upcoming project that's worth sharing, to drum up support for our personal take on the World Vision 40 Hour Famine, which takes place on May 22-24 – around three weeks from now.

We (being Jono Lester, Alastair Wootten and Mitch Evans) have come up with the 2009 New Zealand Motorsport Trainathon, a charity event with full backing and support from the World Vision Organisation and the Millennium Institute of Sports & Health (the Trainathon location). This idea – which was conceived only four days ago – has gone a long way in a short time.

Our task, in a nutshell, is not to starve ourselves for 40 hours, but to fitness train for 40 hours non-stop. We won’t be sharing or relaying – we’re all in it for the long haul, to raise money and awareness for child poverty and world hunger. It will include running, power walking, cycling, spin class, circuit and weight training, swimming and whatever else we can busy ourselves with for the 40 hour stint.

It will of course be bloody hard (most people joking tell us we’re barking mad to attempt this) but the three of us have a lot of determination to make this work, and make it work right.

We have some hefty goals for raising a whole lot of money in the name of a worthy charity, and this is the opportunity to get involved in something that could become not only an annual event, but a new lease on life for the Famine organisation.

All the details are outlined at our website (www.trainathon.co.nz) with everything from who we are, what we’re doing, what we aim to achieve, the media and support we currently have on board (which is growing by the hour) and how businesses and individuals can become involved.

As an aside, we have also applied to the Guinness World Records Organisation for this to be recognised as the world’s longest training session.

This isn't a pledge drive, but any support is of course very much appreciated. For anyone interested, what we are ultimately looking for is a per minute, per hour or lump sum donation to the World Vision/Trainathon fund – as a team, not individually. Every little bit helps, and big chunks help a lot too!

We've been successful so far in drumming up a lot of help, and it should only continue to grow in the coming days and week.

Take a look at www.trainathon.co.nz - you can also follow up leading up to and during the event (which starts at 08:00pm on Friday May 22) on YouTube (www.youtube.com/trainathon40), on Twitter (www.twitter.com/trainathon), on Bebo (www.bebo.com/40hourfaminenz) and also on Facebook - though this group is yet to be set up.

Your support, be it a donation or even a positive message, would be great to have. Keep it on the black stuff guys!

Jono Lester, Alastair Wootten and Mitch Evans.

Please get behind them, get along to the websites above and donate. A worthy cause.

Personally I think they are all nuts - who in their right mind would want to train for 40 hours?