Invictus Award - Paco rabanne - Duncan portrait

Hi, my name is Duncan. I'm 29 years old and I live in London. I'm a long-distance runner. More recently, I've moved to running ultramarathons which is essentially anything longer than a marathon. My main passions in life all revolve around sports. I've always been a runner and played so much sport. The special thing about an ultramarathon is that it's more of a mental battle than a physical battle. One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given was that the hardest distance to conquer is the 4 inches between your ears. It's a battle that we all have at various stages of all our lives. One of the toughest ones I did wasn't even a race. I went to a 300-metre athletics track and I ran around it for twelve hours, 100 kilometres. It was just a personal battle but when I finished, it was this euphoric feeling: if you can do this, you can do anything. My project is to attempt to break the world record for the fastest seven marathons in seven continents. The great thing is that the victor's prize money will go towards my charity of choice which is very close to my heart. The son of a good friend of mine was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, DMD. It's a devastating disease. It's a muscle wasting condition. I don't want to be all dramatic but essentially, he's going to lose the ability of every muscle in his body over time. The most important thing is that we take from our sports the qualities we've learnt and gained. For me, from extreme ultramarathon running, the most important qualities are courage and determination. I hope that's something that comes across, that I'm really going to fight. Hopefully, that is the Invictus spirit.