As part of its ongoing campaign to raise money for charity, Computacenter has worked with Rob to organise a series of fundraising events for Macmillan Cancer Support, including a charity auction and quiz night with prizes from companies including Lenovo, Samsung, Hamilton Rentals, HDS and Canon. Macmillan Cancer Support improves the lives of people affected by cancer by providing practical, medical, emotional and financial support and pushing for better cancer care. One in three of us will get cancer. Two million of us are living with it. We are all affected by cancer. We can all help.
Rob MacAlister, Account Manager, at Computacenter comments: “I’ve been given six weeks off work to conduct the race and Computacenter has been really supportive with my training, as well as assisted me with the technology required to provide updates from the Arctic - something that is not easy to do!”
The North Pole challenge involves pulling sleds of 75Kg over 320 Nautical miles of sea ice in temperatures of - 40, in what is billed to be the toughest race on earth and the type of challenge that is often only attempted by Olympians, for example James Cracknell and Ben Fogle who raced to the South Pole in 2009 for the BBC’s ‘On Thin Ice’.
MacAlister continues: “I can’t wait to get started on the race. The last 18 months have involved some intense training including mountain marathons and four hour daily walks into the office, but now I’m physically ready and the only thing I have to worry about is tackling polar bears along the way!.”
The race started on March 27th at Resolute Bay in Canada, one of the northern most inhabited settlements and finishes four checkpoints later at the magnetic North pole. To see how Rob is doing, you can follow him at http://robmacalister.blogspot.com/ and www.polarrace.com.