Out training in the Cheshire Countryside

I've done it folks!

I've not done the walk yet, but it's just 9 days away!!
But what I have done is met my target- I've raised at least £1000. I've already sent off £582 to my charities- but I've collected another £50, and I've got at least another £480 to collect from sponsors!
This figure doesn't even include sponsorship which I expect to receive from some of my family, or 7 sponsor forms in my local area.

It'll be collected after the event and transferred to the fundraising page shortly!
So my money raised could be reaching £1100, or even £1200. That's awesome. £1200 would plant 1200 trees in the Kinabangtan River, Borneo, where REACT do most of their replanting and reforestation work on forest corridors which helps to connect the isolated patches of forest which basically gives Orang-utans, Elephants and Sun Bears a chance of being able to successfully live and breed. This will drastically prevent their extinction and bring them out of the red zone.

Obviously my charities are getting a 50:50 split. With this money, Breakthrough Breast Cancer could buy a transilluminator, an important machine for scientists to study DNA in experiments, or it could pay for a full 24 hours of a senior scientists time to do important research into breast cancer causes.

The big day will be here before I know it- excited but anxious! Wish me luck and keep donating!

Fundraising is going really well!

I went to Peckforton Castle last night for their 5th year anniversary (my stepdad works for them). It was great to see such an excellent party held despite the chaos the Naylor's have endured this weekend with the great fire. All the best to them with that. It was also a brilliant night because I was given my T-shirts (shown in pic below). Thanks to Simon Hanna, General Manager at Peckforton, for arranging these to be made. They have my charities on them, and they're very stylish and comfortable. I'll be wearing them throughout the event (one per mountain if they get sweaty!). I just need to add my other sponsors logos onto them, but I'm very chuffed with them. The night also went very well because legendary footballer and sport pundit John Barnes, ex-Liverpool and England player who was also manager of the Jamaican football team was there as I believe he is a frequent visitor. I had brought a form with me, and whilst smiling with my new t-shirts on, I approached him and told him what he was doing and asked if he would sponsor me. He was a very friendly chap and I told him about my challenge and how I wanted to raise a lot of money for my two charities. As he's a sportsman I thought he may be interested- and he was. He very very kindly gave me a £50 note straight away after signing my form- fantastic! He wished me luck and asked for an update. He told me to focus on two things at my age- schoolwork and sport! A top bloke who's certainly changed my opinion of footballers. It was also good to meet the team at Peckforton who had sponsored me. I also made another £15 that night from the kind lady whose partner had designed my t-shirts and from Jean @ Beanies Taxi's who took us home! Thanks go to them too!

Thanks go to Jenny and Den Ware, friends of my parents, who aswell as letting me borrow their walkie talkies for the event- have sponsored me £60 online! Brilliant! £60 has been pledged by both of my grandparents too :) My new banner is also on it's way, the old one with the error on will be stuck to the back window of the minibus during the event.

So, so far I've collected £373.27 (not including the £75 online from Jenny and Den Ware). I still need to collect money from Barbara Wilkie (who has very kindly raised £50 for me!), the money pledged by my family and grandparents, the money from my various sponsorship forms in various locations of which I have no idea how much has been raised by them yet, the £100 from my sponsor Peckforton Castle as well as the chance of donations from the general public and a few people on my sponsor forms.

My stepdad's just transferred all my cash donations onto my fundraising page. So my confirmed total now is £447. I've totalled up and estimated how much I've got still to collect and I reckon I've raised £757 so far!

Thanks for all the support guys. You're all awesome and I really appreciate it. Sorry for the long posts. 2 weeks today we'll be driving down to Scotland! Getting nervous but very excited.

Fundraising and training update- 18/6

Hey guys-

Training-wise (probably the most crucial part of the run-up!) I've not been doing a great deal BUT HAVE FAITH IN ME! I'm off out on a 8.5 mile walk tomorrow, on relatively flat and easy ground, as that is all I have in my area, but I'll do it very quickly. I could also do with a good pace to burn off the excessive calories of TWO Sticky Toffee Puddings with Toffee Sauce and Ice Cream, the 99 Flake, the Steak Pie, and the Bread + Butter pudding with custard that I had today! But it was my birthday, after all! I don't normally eat as bad as that.. well... not that often...

Meanwhile on my birthday (which was technically yesterday) I didn't have a particularly ceremonious or chilled day. I always hoped to do the 3 Peaks while I was still 15 to make my record even more impressive and harder to beat, but through being very busy with exams this wasn't feasible at all. Doing it on the longest day (which is in 2 days?) would have been ideal but it would have only given me 1 extra hour daylight..
So anyway- I was up at 7, got out with the dogs and then got back to go down to the Kelsall Primary School Summer Fete in my walking gear and a rucksack full of material at 10am. I set up a little table with all of my sponsorship forms, posters, my Chester Chronicle article printed out etc, along with my banner. You may have noticed my banner on my picture- it actually has an error with it, the REACT logo is there instead of my Peckforton Castle Logo.. I've got a new one coming in the post free of charge- thanks to make-a-sign.co.uk!
So I got a lot of people interested on the way in to the fete at 11am. In total I raised a brilliant £78! £46 of that came from my sponsorship form/donation box on my table. I need to go and collect £5 after the event from one of my old dinner ladies (I haven't been at Kelsall for 5 years- funnily enough I was talking to my old teacher who recalls my last day there, and I left high school a month ago- everything seems so small and goes very quickly!). I gained a lot of interest on the day and I hope those people also got onto my blog ok- and if they have- THANKYOU! Lots of people had seen me in the paper and were very keen to support me. I didn't know a lot of the people who kindly donated but if you signed my sponsor form I'll try and call round to thank you afterwards! Special thanks to the kind blokes on the door who pointed everyone in my direction- that helped! Funnily enough one of the chaps is also a 3 Peaker who did the challenge in 18 hours 48 last year. He had an identical itinerary to me- maybe I can do it in the same time too?
The rest of the money I raised was very very kindly donated by Harry and Diane from Kelsall Plant Centre/Shed City. The Plant Centre has sadly closed hence they were selling off their old stock, I used to work for them, they invited me down to help and kindly gave me 20% of their takings- £32, which totalled £78 all together. Not bad at all for a couple of hours- and it was good fun too (had a good chat to my old teachers and a mooch around!)

I also want to thank Barbara Wilkie, from Weetwood Ales, (www.weetwoodales.co.uk), for taking a sponsorship form and helping me to raise another brilliant £45 in sponsorship for me! Much appreciated! Also thanks again to Diane and Harry from the garden centre, a big thumbs up to Jenny and Den Ware who have kindly lent me their 4 Walkie Talkies for the event- which has saved me £20 in hire costs. Thanks to Gary Porter @ The Chronicle for posting a brilliant article about me last week which has really brought the interest in. I now have sponsorship forms in the Co-op, Boot Inn and the Chemist in Kelsall (and soon to be one in the butchers, Peckforton Castle and the Royal Oak).

I've now got 16 days to train and plan. My schedule is done. I've raised about £550 now- can we double that? I think so!

Training progress update...

Well firstly, exactly 3 weeks today at this very time I should be nearing the bottom of Ben Nevis. I've set myself a target of 5 hrs 30 for it which should be easily manageable as I'll be jumping out of the minibus at the bottom (well, not literally) full of energy.

Earlier today I walked 13 miles. I don't have any mountains near me, or any particularly big hills. I'm nearly 2 hours away from the nearest National Park, Snowdonia, to train on. As well as training on terrain and slopes as similar to the ones I'll be going up in my challenge, I've realised that I need to test myself for long distances over the period of time I'll be walking for. So with basic walking gear on, I set off to Frodsham Hill from my house. It was winding country lanes most of the way, so I was walking on smooth and not particularly challenging terrain but I wanted to test my general endurance fitness. I walked the 13 miles in a reasonable 3 hrs 20- with only very few and brief stops. This also included going up steep Frodsham Hill to Frodsham crag, where there are lots of sandstone boulders and cliff faces which I go rock climbing on. I had a look around here, and paused my GPS watch for 30 mins or so. My watch is going to be an extremely valuable tool in my challenge- it gives me my distance, my pace, my time and my average mile times etc. This hill was the hardest part of the walk. I averaged a good 4mph for the whole of the walk, which isn't bad considering I had done a previous 2 mile dog walk and 10 mile bike ride (to and from school) that morning. The only downside was that I forgot to put on my walking socks and soon found myself with sore feet walking quickly on the hard roads. I also need to invest in some Vaseline for the challenge! Ouch!

Meanwhile mum picked up some energy isotonic gels and a powdered isotonic drink for the challenge to give me extra boosts. I'm only meant to have one per mountain. I originally planned to stock up my calories (also shown on my GPS watch) via Snickers and Mars Bars. Well through research I've found that these actually give you a sudden boost when needed but also a sudden downfall which leaves you feeling more tired. Isotonic energy drinks/gels give you a sudden peak of lots of energy which lasts- should be handy when I'm lagging behind on Snowdon... I've also ordered a vinyl banner, 90 x 40cm, with all of my awesome charities logos and sponsors on with all relevant info. I'll hold it up in triumph when I get a picture taken of myself at the summit of each mountain- firstly as proof that I've reached the top and also to promote my event!

That's all for now folks. Tick-tock....

Training is going well...

I'm currently walking at over 4mph on my training walks, last week I walked a hilly (but unfortunately mainly road) 7.7 miles in 1hr 55. Keeping up my 4mph pace near enough all the way!

5/7/2011- 16 year old goes for 3 Peaks Challenge mountain record!

Hey everyone,

Firstly thanks to all of you for taking the time to visit this page...

Let me introduce you to my challenge and hopefully I can inspire you to kindly sponsor me and benefit 2 very worthy causes... and my record attempt! My charities are shown to the left of the page, fighting environmental issues like preventing the Orangutan going extinct and fighting Breast Cancer via research, education and campaigning- they are both very reliant on your kind donations and do important work which needs funding. The money I raise will be split 50:50 between them.

On the 5th of July 2011, I shall be doing a very tough and physical endurance event called the National 3 Peaks Challenge. The 'challenge' is to climb the 3 highest mountains in the United Kingdom, Ben Nevis (1344m), Snowdon (1038m) and Scafell Pike (978m) within a strict time limit of 24 hours. This includes 24 miles of walking, and nearly 10,000ft of ascent! I shall have little sleep on my 10 hours worth of car journeys in between- my legs will be aching! The time driving from Ben Nevis (Fort William) to Scafell Pike (Wasdale Head) will be 6 hours, the time driving from there to Snowdon (Llanberis) will be 4 hours- this is included in my 24 hours time. I am aiming to complete Ben Nevis in no more than 5 hours 30, Scafell Pike in 3 hours 30 and Snowdon also in 3 hours 30.

I am being driven on the 900 mile journey (starting at my house in Cheshire) by my stepdad who had kindly offered his services along with his 9 seater minibus for plenty of space to stretch my aching legs. My itinerary includes me setting off up Ben Nevis (Tourist Track) at 5.30pm, which leaves me walking down it in the dark (hopefully with awesome sunset views at the summit), then I shall ascend Scafell Pike (Brown Tongue/Hollow Stones route) in the barely-light dusk of the next morning and finish on Snowdon (Pyg track up, Miners track down) in mid-day before 5.30pm to complete the challenge!!!

Where does the record attempt come in? Well, I'll be doing all of this walking and trekking completely on my own. My own navigation and experience will get me up the mountains. Not many people do the challenge solo. Also, not many 16 year old's do the challenge solo, in fact, if I am successful then I will OFFICIALLY be the YOUNGEST PERSON EVER to do the 3 Peaks Challenge SOLO! And trust me folks, I will be successful, the only thing that'll stop me is dangerous weather or an injury!

I have kindly been corporately sponsored by FocusSB, based in Sussex, Peckforton Castle and Tarvin Cars. They are covering my fuel costs etc, as well as donating to my charities which is brilliant.. but will you help me too?

I'd be extremely grateful and appreciative of any donations and sponsorship!