NCR Today

Tom Gallagher, NCR blogger and Mission Management columnist, is blogging from Egypt, where he is racing across the Sahara Desert.

Day 4 - A rest day, but the race will continue
28-Oct-2009 02:57:06 AM [(GMT-05:00) Eastern Time(US & Canada)]

Sahara Race (Egypt) 2009
While my system is quieting down, I didn't have the calories and strength at the start line on Wed., the 4th stage. I decided to take longer to recover and prepare for Day 5, the 54 mile day. Yesterday's temperature was 49 degrees C, making it something around 125 degrees F - the hottest day on record for this race. Day 4 is expected to be about the same.

This morning I rode with Jack Denness, from Rochester, UK, to the next camp. Jack is truly an ultra endurance legend. Among his achievements, Jack has completed 12 Badwaters, the 135 mile footrace in Death Valley in July. Jack is resting today and will go out tomorrow as well. It was a real treat to chit-chat. It was a silver lining to not starting. By the way, Jack is 74.

As surely as leaves change color, autumn brings us renewed interest in all things Latino. As October is Hispanic heritage month, CNN ran a four-hour documentary about Latino life, and PBS brought us a program of Latino musicians, superstars all, performing at a black tie affair attended by none other than Barack and Michelle Obama.

But just as I was getting ready to uncork a bottle of wine and toast to my people's contributions to our great nation, I got an e-mail note from Redemptorist Fr. Ricardo Elford of Tucson. "This is maddening," he said. He then quoted a notice from United Farmworkers Workers:

Oct. 29 is the feast of the Martyrs of Douai, Englishmen who went abroad to study for the priesthood and then returned to England to minister in secret to their fellow Catholics.

"Between 1577, the date of the martyrdom of St Cuthbert Mayne, the college's protomartyr, and 1680, the date of the execution of Thomas Thwing, the college's last martyr, 158 college members, priests and laymen, secular and religious, met with a martyr's death."

To read their names, click here.

For details about the individual martyrs, Edmund Campion, Ralph Sherwin, John Sandys, Southwell the poet, Luke Kirby, Alexander Briant, etc., where they were born, where they studied before going to Douai, what crimes led to their arrest, imprisonment, torture, and execution, where they were hanged, drawn and quartered, etc., click here.