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After witnessing his two grandmothers suffer from dementia in their old age, 40-year-old UK resident Dean Ovel decided to do something drastic to raise awareness about the chronic disease. That drastic thing involved a life-size hamster wheel.
After creating a JustGiving crowdsourcing page, Ovel pledged that he would run in a giant human hamster wheel for a whopping 24 hours in exchange for donations to his local Southend Hospital and subsequent improvements to its facilities and treatment of patients with dementia. In a YouTube video prior to his running challenge, Ovel explains how he built a prototype of the wheel using Legos and then took two weeks to design it and another three weekends to construct it.
Then he actually had to run in it. Fortunately, Ovel is a pretty experienced runner: on his JustGiving page, he explains how he once completed 10 marathons in eight days. On the day of, Ovel handled it like a champ — even talking to news reporters and singing happily!
Nearly 7 hours and 30 miles into a 24 hour challenge, our @human_hamster16 is still in good spirits! #happytalk pic.twitter.com/dWNFQl6wrf
— Dean Ovel (@human_hamster16) May 22, 2016
While this is certainly a challenge way beyond our comfort zone — like the cop who recently held a plank for over eight hours — Ovel has already raised a considerable amount for his cause and is challenging his physical capabilities while doing it.