Welcome to Walk With Ollie 2025 The 'Dune-Bash' Challenge

Walk With Ollie 2025

Ollie Young Foundation (OYF) is a UK charity funding research into brain tumours in children.
Brave little Ollie lost his fight the day before his sixth birthday to an incurable brain tumour only 12 weeks after showing first symptoms.
The ultimate aim of OYF is to find a cure or prevention from this awful disease that affects many children

Ollie Young Foundation (OYF) is a UK charity funding research into brain tumours in children.
Brave little Ollie lost his fight the day before his sixth birthday to an incurable brain tumour only 12 weeks after showing first symptoms.
The ultimate aim of OYF is to find a cure or prevention from this awful disease that affects many children and families. With over 120 different types of brain tumour, it is the biggest cancer killer of children. By directly funding research into brain tumours they are able to pursue this aim.
A proportion of funds raised will be directed towards two organisations very close to the foundation namely Helen & Douglas House and Young Lives vs Cancer.

The 'Dune-Bash' Challenge?

Who?

Dale Thomas who will be 66 years young at the start of the race. He has also have been in remission from stage 4 prostate cancer for almost 5 years...and

The 'Dune-Bash' Challenge?

Who?

Dale Thomas who will be 66 years young at the start of the race. He has also have been in remission from stage 4 prostate cancer for almost 5 years...and has a fully-replaced titanium left hip!!

Why?

As a first and top priority, to raise money for the Ollie Young Foundation.
And secondly, for Dale to revisit the very race that he withdrew from at Stage 5 in 2019, believing that he had just a 'bad case of dehydration' and not realising that he actually had very aggressive prostate cancer. A treatment plan followed and the rest is history. Dale calls the Desert Ultra...'The race that saved my life!'

The Ollie Young Foundation is a fantastic charity which operates without the overheads, paid fundraisers and CEOs of larger charities and raises money to fund paediatric brain tumour research. Dale's adventure is entirely self-funded. All money donated goes directly to eradicating this awful disease.

Meet the team

Dale Thomas-Pensioner on Foot: 65

Dale retired in 2021 from a career in the Software industry. His passion for ultra marathons (He has run the Marathon Des Sables and other crazy endurance events) was cut short when he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in early 2020. After completing his treatment, in 2021 he comp

Meet the team

Dale Thomas-Pensioner on Foot: 65

Dale retired in 2021 from a career in the Software industry. His passion for ultra marathons (He has run the Marathon Des Sables and other crazy endurance events) was cut short when he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in early 2020. After completing his treatment, in 2021 he completed a John O'Groats to Lands End cycle and in 2022 The 3 peaks challenge and a walk home from Snowdon!. In 2023, he walked from Inverness to Wokingham using the canal network to raise funds for the Ollie Young Foundation (OYF) and last year walked 600km down and up the Thames Path again for OYF.

Richard Jones-Fitness:40

Rich has been training Dale for more than 12 years for various challenges during this time. And he has the slogan...'Once a Jungle Brother, always a Jungle Brother!' Despite being led by Dale into one of the most hostile and challenging environments in the world...the Amazon Rainforest in the BTU 2016 Jungle Ultra-Marathon...where things have the ability to kill you, Rich says his biggest achievement to date has been surviving Dale's jokes over the 5 days!

Walk With Ollie 2025