The Challenge: 

·         From 400 feet below ground, to cave over 1.4km to the surface at Giants Hole in Derbyshire. 

·         To cycle 125 miles from the cave entrance to Great Langdale in the Lake District.

·         Topped off with a 6 mile hike to the top of Scafell Pike, 3,209ft. 

Within 24 hours and using human power only, starting the decent into Giants Hole at 5am on 22 June 2013. 

Who

A few friends from the Ashbourne Cycling club mentioned this huge challenge they had created and were planning last year which got my interest, namely to travel from the bottom of the deepest and longest cave systems in Derbyshire to the top of the highest mountain in England, by crawling, cycling and walking all within 24 hours! It was clearly a rare combination of endurance skills, with the physical nature of being on the go for 24hrs, combined with the mental challenge of caving through small spaces and underground streams, topped by climbing Scafell in the dark. Each part is a challenge, all together it appeared a bit of a monster.  

After meeting the full Sump to Summit team a few months ago, I heard a lot more about the challenge, which I was already interested in. More important was the cause it is in aid of.  After learning more about the charity I jumped at the chance to join the challenge. There is probably a reason why this has never been attempted before, however the team felt that the extraordinary work being done by Safe and Sound Derby deserved a fundraising challenge to match.

 

Not being anywhere as fast or fit as I was (a common tale!) I had lined this year up as a quiet training year to get back into some sort of shape. So this is going to be of bit of a shock to the system! 

My wife and I love playing outdoors, which brought us up to live in the Peak district, Ashbourne, in 2004 and I have always loved a bit of a challenge. As a bit of a flavour, in 2006-2010 managing to trundle round an Iron Triathlon and potter across the Gobi Desert, fitting in multi day races such as the OMM, and a few 24hr events such as mountain bike and Adventure races.

Although I have never been the most serious at training, after our little man was born in 2010 sport has certainly taken a bit of a backseat leading to near none existent training for a few years. So with the little amount of training in the last year, here's hoping the phrase 'endurance sport is a mental game' is true, and extensive training is not required! But you don't get the opportunity to do a challenge the size of this, for such a good cause very often, so fingers crossed for the big day (and not getting stuck in a cave).     

The Charity

The Charity we are fundraising for is Safe & Sound Derby. It is a locally based charity performing real live saving work for young people & children who are in desperate need in Derby. It was started in 2002 by a friend of the Sump to Summit team, who through the successful results of this work is now overseeing 140 similar charities in UK Cities.

This description is taken from their website: “Working to end child sexual exploitation, Safe & Sound Derby provides support to children and young people who are being, or at risk of being sexually exploited, together with their families and delivers a UK-wide programme of training services to improve awareness, knowledge and skills to ensure that victims and their families get the help and support they need.” (http://www.safeandsoundderby.co.uk/index.php)

My wife and I have come across this issue ourselves during our 6 years of fostering children in Derbyshire. Yet it is only relatively recently, in a large part due to the work of charities like Safe and Sound, that the issue of sexual exploitation is gaining more press coverage.  Having spoken at length with the founder of the charity, I found some of the cases the charity has been involved with very sad and sickening. More so, was that the charity knows young people and children currently being exploited but are unable help because the charity is already working at full capacity and do not have the additional resources available.

This fundraising will enable Safe & Sound to help more children, and with this appropriately difficult challenge we are targeting over £6,000, and hoping for more.

Just Giving

“Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - we raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity."

Thank you for looking at my Just Giving page. If you want more details on the challenge or the charity I would be happy to talk more about it.

So please contribute, any amount small or large would be much appreciated. It will also help the motivation which is a major factor - I haven’t been down a cave since I was 15, when all I can remember is not liking the small spaces very much and being happy to come out and never have to go back down again!

Thanks for your support

Alex