We did it! We are Ironmen!

Finished within 11mins of each other:

Daz 11:16:47

Mike 11:17:57

Chris 11:20:25 

Wes 11:27:49

With the sponsorship on here and a couple of generous employers we will have raised in excess of £6000 for Oxfam.

(I´ll update page with recent money raised offline once I know numbers...)

Thank you all so much for the donations!

You can see some pictures of the day taken by our never tiring support crew here:

http://t.co/V9iMwvQa

>>>

So here's the big idea:

Boys of Steele aim to be Big Brazilian Ironmen
 
 
Instigator Daz explains:

"Over the next 12 months, three brave (gullible) friends and I are planning "a bit" of a fundraising effort ...

(As some of you know, my lovely girlfriend, Cat, has been working hard for Oxfam for 18 months both at the HQ in Oxford and also in Africa and South America.)

... and we got carried away:

 

 

Our aim is not only to complete an Ironman distance triathlon, but to beat each other to the finish line.

The distances involved in this single continuous event are:
3.8km (2.4miles) Swim
180km (111.8miles) Cycle
42.2km (26.2miles) Run.

To put this in perspective, that's like 152 lengths of your local 25m pool, then riding London to Birmingham, then jumping off your bike to run up to Stafford. Check it out on a map, it's a good distance.

 

The contenders are:

Marathon Mike
 - terrible swimmer (really terrible), average cyclist, amazing sub 3 hour marathon runner.
 
Wez the Local
 - the wildcard, no one knows how fast he is at anything, he's got a nice bike, but broke his leg whilst out running in training.
 
Groovsey Greaves
 - the best swimmer of the bunch, overtakes tri bikes with a pannier racked shopping bike, fragile running knees.
 
Demolition Daz
 - Average/poor swimmer, average/good cyclist, average runner. Tends to break everything.

 

The event is on the 27th May 2012.
It's in Brazil.
We've already been training for several months.
It's getting competitive.
The race is on…

 

Other Info: 

 

Each of us has predicted their finishing time with varying amounts of accuracy (honesty) and they come out to be roughly the same, 12 hours.

 

The winner buys the beer when we finish, the loser has to (insert forfeits here?)

 

Photos of the whole thing will be provided, courtesey of our entourage of cheering supporters.

 

See how far we’ve gone in training:

http://Team4TheWorld.weebly.com/

 

An example of the stylish kit Chris will be wearing is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTn1v5TGK_w

 

 

This is how much fun we are to hang around with:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B03dFMG8nR4 

 

 

 

The event website is here:
http://www.ironmanbrasil.com.br/imb/default.asp?lang=EN

 

We're obviously covering all the costs of our entry and holiday ourselves, so all your donations go directly to charity.

 

We're training for a year, what could you give for a year?
(Signing up for a regular donation helps charities far more than a one off as they can plan and prevent a big disaster rather than just reacting to it, a bit like training...)

 

Why we chose Oxfam:

 

Oxfam's philosophy is to be accountable to the beneficiaries of the aid not the doners. We think that's really important, it's not how all charities are run. Some info about where your cash goes at Oxfam:
https://www.oxfam.org.uk/donate/yourmoney.html

 

Cat's current work is a project to integrate the work of six major charities to cut the costs involved in responding to natural distasters by combining resources and preparation.

 
Previously, she's worked on a number of projects, including coordination of the response to a food crisis in the Sahel region of Sub-Saharan Africa:
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/2010/04/100428_nigerhunger.shtml
 
http://www.oxfam.org/en/emergencies/west-africa-food-crisis
(Click on updates for latest news)