Trailwalker for Oxfam 2008
Over the weekend of 19/20 July 2008 yet another bunch of trainees braved the 100km trek from Petersfield to Brighton in the name of charity, aided by a much needed and excellent support crew. The intrepid explorers included Laura Jordan, Caroline Marsh, Leigh Webber and Sarah Philipps, (team "Charity Matters"); Natalia Sokolov, Simon Pereira, Julia Young, and Nicola Hughes (team "Easyfeat"); and Chris Acton, Nick Burch, Nick Brown and Jane Prior ("team BABA").So far we have raised over £5,500 with yet more to come in. This was achieved in part by a successful charity quiz and auction night for which Natalie Appleby and Louisa Dixon assisted to ensure a variety of desirable prizes were available. A huge thank you to all of those who sponsored us and took part in the quiz night – much appreciated.
The teams began early Saturday morning and walked through the night (with head-torches and high visibility vests – which created much-needed amusement!) straight through to Sunday morning/afternoon where we crossed the finishing line at Brighton racecourse. Not that it was a race, but with a finishing time of 24 hours 55 mins, Nick's team were in the lead, Natalia's team completed it in a decent time of 26 hours 17 mins, and, last but most certainly not least, Leigh's team completed the task in just under 27 hours, taking a more leisurely approach in order to enjoy the scenery and the great company.
On the way team spirit was high amongst us all even when our feet felt ready to drop off and we questioned why on earth we had voluntarily agreed to undertake such a task! Chatting, telling jokes and eating haribo were essential to keeping us going, especially through the night. Notable moments from the teams were (apparently) Jane falling asleep while walking(!), Jane and Caroline's enormous and quite painful blisters, Leigh falling asleep completely at checkpoint 9 and not being best pleased about us waking him up again to walk another 20km! And finally the moment when we all got out of the car back in London stiff as a board and unable to climb our staircases!
None of us could have done it without the amazing help of our support crew. Laura Fisher, Sandy Abrahams, George Panteli, Sarah Cooke and Joanne Pearson kept us all going with smiles, banter, energy snacks and even a delicious barbecue at checkpoint 5 to warm us up. Sarah provided envelopes with jokes at each checkpoint and I believe Laura's team were even provided with foot spas, massages and a party checkpoint - nice work Laura! We all give the support team our warmest and most sincere thanks.
Trailwalker (a.k.a. trail-torture) was a challenge to say the least, both mentally and physically, but it left us all with a great sense of achievement at the end. Well done teams!
That said, would we do it again next year? Hmm …
