St. Bees’ own Wonder Woman, Lisa Spratling, has taken on the challenge of completing the 2019 Marathon des Sables.

KE Adventure Travel’s Product Manager is participating in the gruelling multi-stage 254km marathon, beginning on April 5, which takes runners through the Sahara Desert in expected temperatures of 50 degrees. She will be representing her workplace as part of the Voyageur du Monde group.

Lisa, 50, caught the bug of marathon running when she fancied a challenge five years ago, and the running club she was a member of suggested she take part in one.

Since deciding to run the marathon-of-a-lifetime through the Sahara, Lisa’s routine has been updated to help with the training, now including fell-running, with plenty of cross-training, and even yoga, thrown in.

When asked how she is preparing for running on sand for the duration of the seven-day-long marathon, Lisa said: “I run a little bit on the beach, and in February my team and I are going to the south of France to run in the sand dunes there for practice.”

Surprisingly however, yoga is playing an even bigger part in the brave St. Bees woman’s training, to help prevent getting injured or sore muscles while running up to 86.2km per day.

In response to being asked how she’s feeling about the mammoth task facing her, Lisa mentioned other people’s advice to her, saying, “I’ve been told not to read forums or anything like that, because people just list the problems they experienced and the negative side of it.”

She added: “It’s really exciting, and it’s an experience in life that you just can’t say no to.” Lisa laughed, before commenting,”that’s how I feel now, anyway - I’m not sure how I’ll feel a week before it!”

The avid runner, who has already completed the Lakeland 100, is making sure her pre-Marathon des Sables schedule is jam-packed with enough challenges to put others’ New Year resolutions to shame, taking part in the 2019 Marrakech Marathon in January, as well as the Northumberland Ultra Marathon at the end of February.

Lisa explained her love of ultra-running, and said, “for me, ultra-running is the most ideal way to experience nature (with plenty of pain thrown in!) and what better way to travel through the Sahara desert than on foot”.

Her employer, KE Adventure Travel, are sponsoring Lisa to complete the marathon, and she feels very lucky and thankful that the Keswick company have chosen to support her in such a big way.