From desert to jungle to save wildlife

Hollie Woodhouse is training for a 230km Amazon jungle run to raise money for elephant and rhino rangers.

She's conquered the desert, and now adventure fanatic Hollie Woodhouse is ready to take on the jungle.

The Cantabrian, who balances a rigorous training regime with a full-time job and running a charity, will run through 230km of the Amazon in June in her second ultramarathon.

All proceeds will go to her charity called Running for Rangers, which raises money for the staff who look after endangered species hunted for their ivory in Kenya.

In April, Ms Woodhouse was part of a team of five who ran the Marathon des Sables, a gruelling race through the Sahara, in Morocco.

She spent nights sleeping on a small strip of carpet, watching her feet turn into something that resembled sausage meat and going to the toilet in a bag. And yet she said it was enjoyable.

"If you had told me a few years ago that I would be running marathons on my weekends for fun, I would have fallen off my chair laughing," Ms Woodhouse said.

Despite her always having been into sport, it was not until she had a crack at New Zealand's most famous multisport event, the Coast to Coast, that a healthy pastime became a passion.

The idea for the charity came after she heard about the plight of the elephant and rhino - and the rangers who protect them - from her twin sister and brother-in-law, who live and work on Borana Conservancy, Kenya.

The rangers track and monitor individual animals, trying to protect them against heavily armed and dangerous poachers.

In the Sahara ultramarathon, Mr Woodhouse and her team raised $169,841. She has also started a magazine, Say Yes to Adventure, to showcase ordinary people doing extraordinary things, to raise funds.