An Australian business
man from Sydney intends to perform a marathon 12 days in the air, not on the
ground. Matthias Fuchs, 47, is taking a challenge to raise money and awareness
for cystic fibroses because his 13-year-old daughter has the condition (The
Advertiser, September 23, 2015).
From November 2, 2015,
Matthias will spend 12 consecutive days on 16 flights, leaving and returning to
Sydney each time. He will never leave an airport. It will amount to almost 200
hours of flying time, travelling 167,000 kilometres.
He will travel to
every continent, except Antarctica. There will be 6 Pacific Ocean crossings and
4 Indian Ocean crossings. For example, the marathon flight will include Sydney
to Singapore return, Sydney to Los Angeles return, Sydney to Johannesburg
return and 10 other routes, all of which have been donated by Qantas, an
Australian airline.
For all of his
travels, he will take one carry-on luggage and for the entire 12 days will eat,
sleep, and live on planes. In most cases he will have a few hours between
flights, but he will have a day in the airport at Tokyo, London, and Los
Angeles to stretch his legs and take a shower. His family will meet him at
Sydney airport during the marathon to provide him with clean clothes.
Due to the risk of
Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) from long haul flights he will inject himself daily
with Clexane, drink lots of water, and limit his alcohol intake to one or two
glasses of wine a day. He does not expect to get jet lag because, as he says,
‘your body doesn’t stop in different time zones long enough so it naturally
reverts back to Sydney time, no matter where you are.’
Matthias expects to
have an average of four hours sleep a day. Sleep professor, Rob Grunstein, will
use Matthias as a guinea pig. Matthias will wear an electronic ‘fitbit’ band and have saliva
swabs taken from inside his cheeks every day to assess the impact of 12 days
with minimal sleep.
Matthias is a flying
expert – he has recorded every single flight he has ever taken since he was
born, which amounts to 1,232 flights (around one flight every 10 days).
To date, Matthias
Fuchs has raised $130,000, all of which will go directly to the Cystic Fibrosis
Unit at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead in Sydney. His target is
$150,000-$200,000, which is the cost of a part-time researcher for two years to
improve treatment efficiency. Cystic Fibrosis is the most common
life-threatening recessive gene condition that attacks the lungs and digestive
system with repeated infections. These constant infections eventually lead to
lung damage and eventual respiratory failure.
Reader scan click here
to support the Matthias marathon flight for Cystic Fibrosis.
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