ARCTIC ice ultra-marathon man Paul Fosh was given a lot to think about after inviting Wales wonder woman Lowri Morgan to talk at a charity fund raising lunch and auction.

Paul, managing director of Newport-based Paul Fosh Auctions, is competing in the Likeys 6633 Ultra Marathon in March next year.

The Ultra auctioneer has set his sights on completing the gruelling 120 or the 350 mile challenge to raise £15,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support. The charity lunch and auction raised a total somewhere in excess of £4,500.

Paul, aged 48, is already getting to grips with extreme cold by acclimatising in a Monmouth pasty shop freezer. To help raise funds for Macmillan and also to get an insight into what he will be up against Paul invited Lowri to give a talk at the charity lunch.

Lowri Morgan, who is a presenter on ITV and S4C, was the only person to complete the Likeys Ultra 6633 event when she entered in 2011, was the guest speaker at the charity event at the SWALEC Stadium, Cardiff.

Paul said: “I am in no doubt that that the event is tough and Lowri re-emphasised the fact in her very thoughtful, honest, inspiring and revealing talk. I am now even more determined than ever to complete this event.”

Lowri, brought up on Gower and who calls Wales her green gym, studied music at Cardiff University, explained how she had almost fallen into marathon and ultra-events.

Lowri who started work making tea for a TV production got her first break after securing work as presenter which led her into the gruelling world of Ultra marathons.

A veteran of the Jungle Ultra and one of just eighty people to have dived to the wreck of the Titanic, she spoke of her training with the SAS and in the ice of Norway in readiness for the Likeys 6633 in which she was the only one to complete the course

She said that out of the two Ultra events, the sweltering heat of the jungle and the freezing cold Arctic, the Likeys 6633 was the hardest but it was the one, looking back on, which she enjoyed more and was the most rewarding.

She said it was a very painful experience, but she embraced the pain rather than try to work round it, and she managed to finish the race – the only one to do so in the year she competed.

Paul Fosh’s main sponsors for the his Likeys 6633 Ultra charity event are HSJ Accountants, Quality Solicitors Rubin Lewis O’Brien, Paul Fosh Auctions, Rightmove/Agent’s Giving and Auction Finance.