Virgin Money Giving, sadly, are closing down their fundraising website as of tonight so will no longer be accepting donations for charities. We wanted to take the opportunity to say a MASSIVE thank you to everyone who has supported our efforts this year (and every year!) and helped us to raise a wonderful £1,201 (£1,444 with Gift Aid) for the Motor Neurone Disease Association and Alzheimer’s Research UK.
It's been another strange year for everyone, with more lockdowns and ongoing restrictions leading into the summer, meaning more ‘virtual’ and postponed events – but then, much to our delight, a tentative autumn return to races and ‘live’ events. It’s been fantastic to get back out there and spread more awareness, meet up with friends again and push ourselves along with the thousands of others fundraising for numerous deserving causes.
To keep ourselves motivated at the start of the year, we took on quite a few virtual challenges, ranging from half marathons (the usual Star Wars, as well as a Charles Darwin half which took place on a freezing day in February) through accumulator challenges (March metric accumulator, Mike’s 862-mile Antarctica running challenge, Christine’s Everest 116-mile challenge) and, later, a 500-mile cycling challenge completed over a few months to help us train for the autumn events.
In April, Mike found a new formula duathlon with five stages: run 5k, bike 20k, run 5k, bike 20k, run 5k – a gruelling format but completed it, and on a very windy day.
Christine’s first major event was in July – Race to the Stones, a 100 km ultra along The Ridgeway. A really tough one to start the live events, but completed in 21 hours and 24 minutes.
We had a slight rest before the commotion of the autumn – with so many events having been postponed over the past 18 months, they all then landed at once. Within the space of eleven weeks, we completed four half marathons, a duathlon, a marathon and our 100k cycle. This one was a big challenge for us, as it was the furthest either of us had ridden, and in addition there was over a kilometre of elevation through the mountains of South Wales and it included some grim weather on the tops to contend with. All of these were events that we had originally planned to take place over the space of eighteen months!
Virtual events: RED January (Christine), Darwin Day half marathon (both), March Metric Accumulator (both), Star Wars half marathon (both), Antarctica 862-mile challenge (Mike), Everest circuit 116-mile challenge (Christine), Taj Mahal 144-mile challenge (both); Scotland’s North Coast Path 500-mile cycle (both)
Running: Race to the Stones 100k (Christine), Great North Run (both), Manchester marathon (Christine), Cambridge half (both), Leicester half (Christine), St Neots half (both) … Milton Keynes half still to come.
Cycling: Formula 5 duathlon (Mike), London duathlon (both), Dragon Ride 100k (both)
Christine has now completed 82 half marathons, and Mike has notched up 70 – we're keeping a close eye on the numbers now so we can celebrate the big milestones!
We couldn’t do it without you. Even though the page will be closed, we have one more event left, and we will be looking for another platform for our future fundraising (we already have a couple of things up our sleeves for next year …) – because until there’s a cure, there is no finish line!
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to each and every one of you.
