What it's all about..

Welcome to my charity event website. The purpose of the site is to publicize my charity fundraising efforts. 

The most recent efforts have been cycling Offa's Dyke over a weekend with colleagues from work, and the Great North Run with Linda, a running novice friend of my wife's.

In Sept 2006 I was persuaded to join a band of young engineers from the office to do the Oxford to Cambridge bike ride, another of the BHF backed events, and this time a serious 85miles. As usual with a mix of decent training and not very much at all, we approached the day. I think I had really been invited to sort out the transport, and after much pestering, managed to get the Company (Lockheed Martin INSYS) to stump up a transit van and minibus. The early start (~5am ish I seem to recall) had one of our drivers (taking us to the start and driving the van to the finish to bring us home) was caught on an M1 speed camera on the way to work to pick us up! Loaded up, we set off amidst a hail of suggested directions to get to Oxford. We arrived just in time for the drizzle to start and to line up in the start funnel. Start was at 7am which coincided with torrential rain. The start was soon over, but the rain wasn't. The aim of doing the whole ride as a group foundered early and we split into three. The rain eased after about 30 miles. By Woburn it was fine, and by the end unbearably hot! carbo fluid intake was order of the day, along with bananas and energy bars. A pub near the finish line saw some brisk early evening trade (and subsequently ran out of Guinness) where we met up with some dedicated WAGs, before the van took us homeward. So a good, late summer challenge over easy terrain, needing some perseverance towards the end - good to do as a group, encouraging each other onward. ~£2600 raised and enjoyable enough for the youngsters to want to do something similar again!

The one before that, a few years ago now, was entitled, Defeating England. Briefly (in words, and not effort) this entailed cycling the length of England (or Berwick to Land's End) in just over a week in the summer in aid of my chosen charity Deafness Research UK. The charity used to be Defeating Deafness, hence the name of the event - play on words all looks a bit weak now!!

The reason for the choice of charity is that it is the UK’s only national charity dedicated to helping hearing-impaired people through medical research and education. The charity exists to secure radical improvements in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of all forms of hearing impairment. My primary personal interest is that my daughter was born with hearing on one side only. The personal interest in the charity gives an added incentive to go the extra mile, or indeed, miles... 

The above efforts followed a number of other runs and cycles I had previously undertaken, described hereabouts on other pages. These include the London marathon , BHF London to Brighton Bike ride (twice) and the three highest peaks in mainland Britain in 24 hours (the 3 Peaks Challenge) . I try to find something a little more challenging each time to warrant another call on sponsorship from friends, family, colleagues and strangers!!

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