SAS Who Dares Wins star teams up with Littlehampton veteran to launch Ultra 4 Charity endurance events
A Littlehampton veteran has teamed up with an SAS Who Dares Wins star and another former Army officer to launch a new series of ultra-endurance challenges, designed to support mental health and raise money for military charities.
Richard French, known as Frenchy, has launched Ultra 4 Charity with Jason Fox, known as Foxy, and Brian Wood, known as Woody, to put on affordable but demanding ultra-adventures.
They have found endurance challenges have helped them with their mental health and they want to make ultra challenges more accessible to others, while helping charity at the same time.
As well as providing a training goal and getting like-minded people together to take on challenges, it will raise awareness and much-needed funds for charities that support veterans battling with mental health challenges.
Frenchy has run multiple ultramarathons for charity, including 250km through the Wadi Rum desert and setting a new record running 100 miles wearing full body armour.
Like Jason and Brian, he has been affected by physical and mental wounds through service but finds physical fitness and the aim of demanding challenges have a huge positive effect on his mental health.
Frenchy joined the Army in 1999 and served for 17 years in the Coldstream Guards and 3 PARA, a battalion of the parachute regiment. Trained early in his career as a sniper and later sniper commander, he deployed on eight operational tours and multiple training team deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Anti-poaching in Africa.
Frenchy was blinded in one eye by a Taliban grenade in Afghanistan and later injured in a military parachute jump while working with the American 82nd Airborne. This led to his medical discharge from the Army. Since leaving, he has worked and volunteered for multiple charities in both event planning and case working.
Woody, from Hampshire, served for 17 years with the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment and Foxy served in the Royal Marines Commandos and the Special Boat Service, later becoming a TV personality.
The three former senior non-commissioned officers from the British Armed Forces say Ultra 4 Charity is designed to be the simplest, easiest, most cost-effective way to run an ultramarathon for charity.
The first event will be an ultramarathon in the Sahara Desert in October 2025. There are three race distances to choose from, in and around Tozeur in Tunisia.