July - running 90 km in 24 hrs

July brought what has been my most physically gruelling challenge so far. There is an event called the adidas Thunder Run: an off road relay where you have to get as many laps of 10 km run in 24 hours as you can. The past 2 years I have entered in teams of 6 and 7 people, and we've managed to do 24 and 22 laps respectively. 

This year, however, was different. 

Initially, I decided I would effectively become 2 members of a team of 5, but due to injury, we started with only 3 runners: myself, my boyfriend Ben and his friend Sam. This si what we looked like at the start:

We began strongly, smashing our schedule and finishing 7 laps in the first 6 hours. Maybe this was our downfall, as both of my team members were struck by knee problems, meaning that after their 3rd laps, they were reduced to walking. 

We had a fantastic support team, of Sam's family and girlfriend who provided massage, encouragement and snacks throughout the 24 hour effort. Without them it would have been a different story.... As it was, we powered through and before sunset I'd done 5 laps, with Sam and Ben contributing another 5. After a 3 lap stint from Ben, and a very speedy walking lap from Sam, I set off at 2:45 on my hardest session: aiming to finish laps 6, 7 and 8 before handing over to Ben at 6:30. 

Thanks to borrowed headtorches, it was barely dark at all! This meant I survived without falling over, and managed to (mainly) run all 3 laps in a slither under 4 hours. This brought up to 17 laps in total, and we decided we should all drag ourselves round the course once more to bring us to the end. I'm extremely proud to say we did it! Unlike previous years, the rain held off for 23 hours, so it was only my final lap when I had to whip out the waterproofs...

Although we didn't finish looking like the speedy gazelles we imagine we looked like at the start, we made it! 200 kilometres run in 24 hours! I would never have imagined I could run 90km in less than a week, let alone one day! 

Thank-you so much to all those who supported, lent kit and donated - we definitely couldn't have done it without you!! 

www.justgiving.com/RADCC2015

And just in case you wondered what we felt like afterwards - here is me trying to get up the stairs...

June: SKYDIVE! aka the worst 30 seconds of my life...

On Saturday, I joined some others raising money for the Lullaby Trust for their "Jump in June": a skydive from Salisbury airfield. As someone that is super-terrified of heights and having my feet off the ground, I was dreading this challenge. I had also had to tactically not tell my Mum about this one...

So I was due to arrive at the airfield on Saturday at 4pm. Where we were in Bournemouth, it was gloriously sunny, with a small amount of wind. I received a text from GoSkydive at 2 ish, telling me that they had stopped sending people up to jump because of the wind, and that their was a chance that I was not going to be able to jump: did I want to reschedule? No!! I had built myself up so much to do the jump that day that I couldn't deal with delaying. So I headed to the airfield with my fingers crossed. 

On arrival I saw that they had started sending people up, as the wind had died down. However, when I had my training, they told me that there was not going to be enough time to jump, and that we should book another time: as we would have already done our training, we would be able to get a priority jump at 8am on another day. So we finished our training, I re booked for next weekend and headed back to the car. After a small breakdown, I realised I hadn't asked if they would be able to the next morning! I gave them a call from the car park and booked in for the next morning. 

Looking forward to my newly gained afternoon in the sun, and dreading my early morning alarm, I was driving out of the airfield when I received another call - letting me know they had one space on the last flight of the day! What a rollercoaster! I said yes immediately, and did a quick turnaround. 

After an hour or so sat in the sun, I went to get my jumpsuit on (I managed to squeeze my Lullaby trust t-shirt on over the top!) and got ready to get in the plane. 

I say plane, but it was a tiny little thing! I was unsure that I was even going to make it high enough to jump out of... 

The flight up was nerve-racking: at 6000ft our harnesses were tightened and there was no option but to lean back against the instructor. 4000 more feet up and then there was the noise of the engine changing pitch as it got ready to throw us out! I was near the back of the queue to leave the plane so saw a few others go first: the cameramen hung themselves out of the plane, while the instructor and jumper sat on the edge ready to fall. Then it was my turn. It all went pretty quickly, but the immediate freefall was just terrifying. To be honest, it was probably was the worst 30 seconds of my life...

When the parachute took hold, I just felt an overwhelming sense of relief and started shaking. Which kept going until about 30 minutes after I landed! The cruising down to the ground was weird - like looking out of a plane window, but with nothing in between you and the ground! The weather was great though, so the views were fantastic. 

After a practice getting into the landing position at 3000ft, my instructor gave me a great tour of the countryside - pointing out all of the sights in view. Then came the landing, which was quick and simple. I was definitely in shock afterwards, and was very grateful to my boyfriend for being there to drive me home! 

It was an epic day, but I survived!! 

www.justgiving.com/RADCC2015

OMM Iceland - we survived!!

After deciding to enter OMM Iceland to raise money for The Lullaby Trust, Kat and I arrived at the start carrying all the borrowed kit we had been able to find, and with an injury preventing us from running. Not the ideal start to our first orienteering event! However, the sun was shining (unusual for Iceland) and so everything would be OK...

On arrival, the OMM team were incredibly welcoming, even letting us into their farmhouse and supplying tea. Camping on the first night was an experience, with icelandic weather showing us just what it can do: just waking up on Saturday with our tent still on the ground felt like an achievement!

Once we had packed our race bags and been taught how to use a camping stove, we were given our maps and 30 minutes to plan a route. The checkpoint locations were pretty novel: "volcano crater" and "side of hot spring" to name a few! As we knew our chances of doing well at the short score were pretty non existent, we decided we would make the most of being in Iceland and head straight for the volcano crater. On the other side of the map.

We soon discovered that lava fields and hills of ash are not the ingredients for speed, and also that locating checkpoints was not our strong point! It became clear once we had located the volcano that we would be really quite late for the short score first day finish. We messaged ahead to explain we were fine, but just having too much fun, and headed on our way. Again, the landscape changed dramatically into a river valley with blue-ish sandy slopes on either side.

Once through "the mud pits of doom" we made it back to the campsite a mere 45 minutes late - enough to take us into negative points for the day! However, the organisers took pity on us and moved us up to the medium score class where we sat firmly at the bottom of the rankings. Despite some plumbing problems leading to "a loo with a view", the campsite was nice: well sheltered with a lot of comraderie between the teams. A night of slightly less crazy weather was abruptly ended by the sound of "Jerusalem" blaring out of the OMM truck first thing in the morning! That was a particularly surreal experience...

For the second day, we were much more conservative with our route planning, and although disappointed to admit we weren't going to make it to the hot spring region, we headed out determined to at least do some orienteering. We found all the checkpoints we were aiming for that day (even if we did overshoot one!) and arrived back at the farmhouse way before we were expected. This came with the benefit of sheltering inside and welcoming the other teams across the line as they came in.

We were then all treated to some fantastic home-made chilli and flapjacks before the prizegiving. We were astounded at how many points some of the other teams had managed to get! To top of a great weekend, we all headed for the blue lagoon for some soaking in the natural hot waters. 

Doing the OMM Iceland was a fantastic experience, even for first timers, with the only downside being that we weren't fast enough to reach all the exciting checkpoints!
www.justgiving.com/RADCC2015

Preparing for the OMM

This blog post is optimistically titled "preparing for the OMM", the OMM being the Original Mountain Marathon that's happening over the late May bank holiday weekend in Iceland. 
Having decided a number of months ago that this was a good idea, my partner Kat and I are starting to believe otherwise. We're also starting to think that preparation might have been a good idea...

The OMM is a two day running and navigational challenge. Currently, Kat is injured and unable to run, and neither of us have successful histories in navigation. We have also not really camped before, and this challenge involves us carrying our camping kit and being self sufficient for the weekend. Needless to say, we're a bit scared. 

So the last few weeks have been a slightly panicked rush of finding/buying/borrowing kit, combined with long runs accompanied by a rucksack. After one of these runs last week, I discovered that a small amount of discomfort soon leads to horrible looking rucksack burns on your back. Ouch!

We're doing all of this to raise money for the Lullaby trust, so to give us more motivation to not just stay in our hostel eating Nutella, then go to www.justgiving.com/RADCC2015 to donate. 

And wish us luck - we're going to need it!!

April - The Ram Run!

Many of you will know that I do a lot of running. I would even go as far as saying as I enjoy it! So you may be surprised that I chose a running event to be one of these challenges. Too easy? I wish...

They say a picture says 1000 words, so here comes a novel!

As you can see, I can't say I enjoyed every minute... But I made it! 

www.justgiving.com/RADCC2015

Everest in July?

So, for my July challenge, I will be attempting Everest! However, instead of risking the snow and earthquakes, I will be attempting the same elevation but in Bath....

With anyone who is crazy enough to join me, I will be running (/walking/crawling/rolling) up and down Widcombe Hill in Bath. It's a 3 km round trip from the bottom to the top and back down again with 150 m of ascent. To get to the top of Everest, this means doing this hill 60 times!!! 

I currently am thinking that my aim will be to do it 30 times, with a team of crazies joining me to make up the other 30 (or as many as possible!). 

Who fancies joining me? Every little helps, so just one walk up and down each will all add up :-)

March!!

My initial intention for these challenges were for my friends and family to suggest ideas, and challenge me to complete them. March was the first example of this actually happening, when my friend Charlotte (Charli), knowing about my fear of heights, challenged me to walk across the top of the Millenium Dome (or O2 arena). I accepted her challenge and got another 2 friends to join her in coaxing me across the bouncy walkway. 

Miriam and I arrived at the O2 15 years after we had been to visit it when it was the Dome, in very windy conditions and quite a lot of rain. We sheltered in a coffee shop waiting for the other two, and watching people in a previous group climb up the side of the building. It was really steep and looked pretty difficult. To distract me, Miriam engaged me in conversation about the rest of me challenges for the year, and instead of accepting June's response of "I'm thinking about doing a skydive", she persuaded me to e-mail The Lullaby Trust and sign up! (gulp). 




So now super terrified about my upcoming skydive, I had been distracted from the challenge directly ahead of me. We met Emma and Charli and went to "base camp" of the O2. We were told that the climb would be cancelled if the average wind speed over a 10 minute interval was greater than 35 mph. Luckily (ha!) it was a mere 34, so we were good to climb. After a briefing video we were presented with our super-sexy climbing gear: boots, waterproof jacket, trousers and a harness. We headed outside into the rain/snow/sleet and sheltered by the entrance for a final harness check and briefing. 

The climb started with a small flight of stairs and then photos. Whilst I was trying to smile and not think about how I could see the floor considerably far beneath me, Miriam enthusiastically declared we would like to go first in the group. So our harnesses were clipped on to the safety line and off we went! So I thought this challenge was going to be pretty easy, but trying to walk up a trampoline, sloped at 25 degrees, with epic sidewinds in the rain was really tough! We were pretty speedy, and had to wait for a bit at the top before the rest of the group joined us and we were un-clipped from the safety line and allowed to walk around the platform at the top. 

On a nice day, I can see this would have been a glorious view. As it was, we were actually worried about being un-clipped, as we thought we might get blown away! Although the average wind speed was 34mph, there were some gusts which were definitely stronger... At best, we glimpsed the Orbit in the Olympic Park through the cloud and dreamt of tea and warm baths. And then it was time to go down: again, easier said than done. The slope on the way down went as steep at 30 degrees, as there were no stairs to get you to the ground. If it hadn't been for the safety mechanisms, I think we would have all slid down on our bums and ended up in the Thames! 



Feeling very damp and cold, but accomplished, we were given back the clothes we had left at base camp and we headed off in search of tea... 

Thanks to Emma, Charli and Miriam, and don't forget - it's all for charity! I'm raising money for The Lullaby Trust in memory of my twin sister: to find out more and to donate go to www.justgiving.com/RADCC2015