This Blog will follow my journey as I prepare for the biggest challenge of my life – trekking to Everest Base Camp in December 2011 for Macmillan Cancer Support.
In March 2010 I decided to run the 10km Race for Life in Cheltenham for Cancer Research. I trained for the race and between myself and my 2 lovely daughters managed to raise over £850 for Cancer Research. I completed the race in 1 hour 20 minutes, not bad for a complete novice, but I knew that I could do better.
Following the Race in July I went on holiday for 2 weeks, came home and stopped training altogether. Two months later I had gained that half a stone back and could not run for much longer than 5 minutes at a time – it was time to do something about it.
On New Year’s Eve my husband Mark and I were talking about New Year’s Resolutions. The usual came up, lose weight, eat healthily, cut down on my wine intake etc, etc. Out of nowhere I said to Mark that I would like to challenge myself, to raise money for charity and to have an adventure. The idea went on the back burner for a few months as normal busy life took over, but after my 10km race, and before I lost my nerve, I kept going back to my resolution and here I am.
The Challenge is twofold for me – the physical efforts involved in getting fit enough to deal with the event and the enormous challenge of raising £3000 for charity. I am quite a shy and quiet person and to raise the money I will have to put myself out there, talk to people, ask for support and generally take a massive jump outside my comfort zone.
Why Macmillan Cancer Support? Macmillan cared for my father in law Tom when he was diagnosed with cancer in 1995. They made a huge impact on his care throughout his illness and were a great comfort to his family when Tom finally lost his battle in 1996.
It is Macmillan’s centenary year next year, and I wanted to attempt a Challenge worthy of the occasion.
It is certainly a huge undertaking - the Challenge will take 16 days in total and is graded as “extreme” due to the length of days trekking at high altitude (5545 metres - that's 735 metres higher than Mont Blanc) and a very high level of training and fitness is required.
