Following the little purple line

Matthew Mirabelli joined Nathan Farrugia on part of his challenge to run 27 marathons in 27 countries in 27 consecutive days.

It seemed an impossible task. Wondering what life would be like for Mr Farrugia and his team, I managed to arrange to spend time with him, travelling and documenting the event for three days.

The plan was to fly to Milan, then drive to Bergamo to meet up with Mr Farrugia and Cliff Sultana, his navigator. The idea was to follow Mr Sultana who was keeping to a little purple line on a satellite navigation device mounted on his bike – the purple line was, of course, Mr Farrugia. He was also in charge of handing out water and gels hourly which would keep the athlete going during his runs.

From Milan we would head to Alba, where Nathan would run his 18th marathon, then head to Ljubljana, Slovenia, and lastly Vienna, Austria, were I would leave the team as they pushed on to finish one week later in Cyprus.

It was 8.30 p.m. when we finally made it to the arrivals lounge of Caravaggio airport in Bergamo. The team had just flown in from Barcelona where they had completed marathon 17 that morning.

In his daily blog, Mr Farrugia wrote that he suffered a muscle tear in his shin, but he seemed to be oblivious to it as we greeted each other and settled into the camper van, that served as “campaign headquarters” and a home from home. The camper was fairly spacious for the first 30 minutes. Sleep was virtually impossible while driving at 130kph down the motorways. I often glanced at Nathan who would be trying to rest on his miniscule sofa bed as he bounced in the air at every bump.

How was he going to run 42.2 kilometres the following morning on four hours sleep? Images of a camper van parked in a comfortable campsite with all the modern conveniences on hand quickly became a myth after the first night.

Due to the early starts the camper van driver would follow his sat nav to the marathon’s start line and park as close as possible to it, to eliminate any extra driving in the morning. This was convenient, but it had its drawbacks as this often meant we were parked in the centre of capital cities.

The normal routine was to start the run at about 7.30 a.m. The marathon would take Mr Farrugia about four hours or slightly longer, after which he would freshen up, have some lunch, possibly fit in a spot of sightseeing and then start the journey onto the next country. Along the way he would get some rest, have his legs massaged by Mr Sultana and the process would be repeated the following morning.

Somewhere en route between Ljubljana and Vienna it crossed my mind, why on earth would somebody want to do such a challenge? Mr Farrugia’s reply was fairly straightforward: together with a friend he had completed what is perhaps the toughest running race on earth, the Marathon des Sables, a six-day 243 kilometres race through the Sahara. Sitting down for a coffee some time after completing the race he needed a new challenge and the idea was born.

Donations towards the Kinder European Challenge can be made through the website www.27challenge.com or by sending an SMS, with the number 27 in the body of the text message to 5061 8926 for €6.99 and 5061 9215 for €11.65.