10 • Profile


MARATHON MAN


GP Dr Andrew Murray has run to the Sahara, raced across the Arctic and is a keen mountaineer. He talks to GPST about his passion for adventure and his desire to make the nation more active


taking part in extremely demanding races in some of the world’s most hostile environments. Most recently, he completed the Scotland2Sahara Charity Run from John O’Groats to the Sahara desert – an astonishing 2,659 miles run in 78 consecutive days, averaging 34 miles a day. Featured on the BBC’s Adventure Showin a piece called ‘The Ultimate Marathon Man’, the aim of this outstanding achievement was to raise money for the Yamaa Trust, a charity which works to tackle poverty in the south Gobi region of Mongolia. He is clearly made of hardy stuff. “The Arctic race, where I fractured the tibia in my lower leg, was 150 miles without any support, with an average temperature of minus 52 degrees with windchill,” he says. “I also had to drag all my stuff behind me in a sledge. Because of the sort of race it was, there was no option to stop, so I had to keep going even though I was injured. “In the same year, I’d run desert races in temperatures of 45


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degrees. It was really good fun. I like challenging myself by going into completely different environments and seeing the way different people live. I’ve also run in the jungles of Indonesia, and taken part in the Marathon des Sables, a six-day, 151 mile endurance race across the Sahara.” Andrew first discovered ultramarathons when he was travelling in Nepal and a friend left some valuables six miles and 1,000 feet back up a mountain. Luckily for his friend, Andrew volunteered to “jog back up to get them” and, on the way, met some runners training for the Everest Marathon. Inspired, he decided to give it a go himself. He says: “I’d never run a marathon before, but it sounded like a good idea. And Mount Everest is spectacular, so I decided I could do a big run and combine it with seeing a bit of the world.”


PHOTOS:© RICHARD ELSE


HERE aren’t many doctors who would recommend running 100 miles across the Arctic wastes with a broken leg, but that’s just one of the many challenges faced by Dr Andrew Murray, Edinburgh-based GP and sports and exercise registrar. Andrew, 31, is an ultramarathon runner – regularly


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