My last big training walk!

The big day closes in on me.

Everything has been bought for the challenge now except the food for us. These calorific treats shall be picked up on Monday from the local Co-op. I've produced a 10 page report with everything in, in agonizing detail. It contains the schedule, 'golden rules', back-up driving routes in case the sat nav fails, lists of equipment I have and food we have (useful for packing beforehand). It wouldn't make much to sense to anyone else but half of the challenge is planning it well. Everything from weather forecasts (which I'll do last minute) to my destination postcodes and my walking routes in case a search party is needed (hopefully not) is on it.

Well I now know that when I collect every donation I'm going to have a minimum of £1200. I'm sure most of these people will donate (well, hopefully they keep to their word). Can I just say a HUGE thankyou to everyone who has donated, either from one of my corporate sponsors, or from the various sponsorship forms/collection boxes in various locations, on my fundraising page and those donations given to me/my family directly. I really appreciate it and to have met my target, which I doubted I'd reach, a week before is bloody brilliant. Although legally 50% of all sponsorship money can be spent on paying for the activity by the person who is doing it.. this WILL NOT be the case. Apart from £75 from one of my corporate sponsors, FocusSB, every donation will go to my charities and split equally 50:50.

So- so far, 1200 (and probably 1300) would buy 1200 saplings (young trees) in Borneo, so continuing with the restoration projects already ran by one of my charities, REACT. It could also pay for a full 24 hours of a senior research scientist's time in finding cures for cancer at Breakthrough Breast Cancer.
Walked 12 miles earlier today in a nice 2hrs 50. Nice easy walking, nothing like what I'll be doing on Tuesday evening and Wednesday. But I'm ready for it.

Thanks go to Gary Porter @ Chester Chronicle for posting more info about my attempt in this week's issue, having picked up on the story from this blog about me being backed by John Barnes. More media coverage should help to raise my profile and raise more money. Thanks also go to Mike @ The Boot Inn, Willington for sponsoring me £100 as well as another £70 on his sponsor form there. Good stuff.

T-shirts are done, everything's raring to go.
As Edmund Hillary once said about Everest- 'well, we knocked the bastard off'. Time to go and do just that!