Chesterfield mates battle through ‘suffocating’ Amazon jungle to raise funds for ‘amazing’ local charity which helped mum

Dave Benison, 48, and Carl Bamford, 44, of Chesterfield, have travelled all the way to Peru to run in The Jungle Ultra – a multiday, self sufficient running event through the Amazon Rainforest.

They had to brave through temperatures of up to 35 degrees and 85 percent humidity to complete 230 kilometres in just five days. Dave and Carl have not only finished the run in the top half, but also raised over £5 000 for Ashgate Hospice – the Chesterfield-based charity providing illness and end of life support, which is very close to Carl’s heart.

Carl, a husband and dad of three said: “My, mum, had end of life care at Ashgate just before she passed away in 2010 and they have been brilliant. Anytime I do any challenge, I like to do it for them.

"This is definitely the toughest challenge I've ever done but it was very rewarding. I remembered why I was there and it helped me through day four which was the toughest for me. I had an ankle injury and trying to move up to your knees in mud, rocks and water on that day was very tricky.”

Dave and Carl have been preparing for the Jungle challenge for over three years. They first wanted to take it on in 2020 – but the run was cancelled twice because of Covid and last year their equipment got lost by the airlines - meaning they could not be at the start line on time.

Dave, who has recently celebrated a sixteenth wedding anniversary, said: "We were very happy that we finally got to do it and that we have raised over £5 000 for Ashgate – they are an amazing local charity and it is difficult to find anyone in Chesterfield who doesn’t know someone who they helped.”

While Carl has never done any similar challenge before, Dave had more experience – he’s completed a Sahara Desert run in the past but still found conditions in the Amazon rainforest very tough.

He said: “The heat and humidity are unbearable, it’s the harshest environment to run in and it’s suffocating. It was harder than I was expecting. One of the run leaders didn’t finish the marathon at all. We had to change the run strategy a few times because we needed to adapt to the conditions.

"The surface was tricky and we had to do back-to-back daily long runs with heavy backpacks. And the last day was a length of two marathons – with the tiredness from the previous days it was challenging.”

Carl added: “The terrain was extremely tough. I thought we would be running a lot more - but the terrain was slowing us down quite a lot. We had to go through slippy river beds and cross the water several times – sometimes by boat or a zip line and sometimes on foot. On top of that some checkpoints were four or five hours apart so we had to be sensible with hydration and food.

"But visiting places that only 50 people in the world have seen and running through little settlements that have no experience of civilization was magical and I could recommend it to anyone.”