An extreme cold weather athlete, trainer, and mindset coach from Switzerland will be passing through Cochrane this Saturday as he pounds the pavement to help raise money and awareness for those with autism.
Andre Belibi Eloumou will be running 120 kilometres – shirtless – from Calgary to the Icefields Parkway, just past Lake Louise, from April 22 to 23.
Belibi is a cold-weather athlete from Geneva, Switzerland, who believes that you can achieve anything in life with the right mindset.
He explained the story behind tomorrow’s run goes back to when he last travelled to Airdrie a few months ago, while training to break a world record for the longest ice-bath immersion.
“I came to Canada last February to train for an ice bath world record for my daughter with autism,” Belibi said. “While I was doing this, I got in contact with a foundation called Team Mason 2021 Foundation, and we were like, ‘Why don’t we do a project together? Because I wanted to come back to Canada to keep extreme training.”
No stranger to Alberta, Belibi used to attend college in Calgary over 15 years ago. With an all too-familiar sense of the brutal cold weather that can come to this region, he said the extreme conditions help train both his mind and body.
People can pledge kilometres, no matter how big or small, as Belibi aims to help raise $500,000 with $250,000 going towards Team Mason 2021 Foundation, with the end goal of building a sustainable housing centre for people with disabilities.
The rest of the money raised will be used to help him reach his goal of breaking the world record for the longest ice bath later this fall.
“In total, for building their complex, we would like to raise $8 million,” Belibi said.
Although the weather on Saturday won’t be in the bone-chilling negatives Belibi is used to conducting his stunts in, he said his entire run will be done shirtless. He will embark from the south side of the Peace Bridge in Calgary at 10 a.m. From there, he will run west toward Highway 1A and pass through Cochrane, Canmore, and then 20 kilometres past Lake Louise to the Icefield Parkway.
Later this year, he said he wants to break the current Guinness World Record for the world’s longest ice bath for his daughter and everybody who is on the autism spectrum.
“For this ice bath, I will need to stay standing in a box with ice cubes up to my collarbone,” Belibi said. “And I need to stay for three hours and 28 seconds [plus].”
A passionate proponent of cold immersion, Belibi added that ice baths are also an overall great form of therapy and advocates for their benefits.
“It helps with blood circulation, depression, losing weight, self confidence – a lot of things like that,” he said.
With the two very unique missions in the future, but committed to the same goal, Belibi asks anyone who would like to pledge support to his run or find more information on the event to visit bit.ly/3oAvhyF.
People can follow Belibi and his journey online by following him on Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok via @andrebelibi. For more information about the Team Mason 2021 Foundation, Belibi said to visit their Facebook page or teammason2021foundation.org.
