So, since Jill initially had the idea of doing the epic 4x4x48 Goggins Challenge in honour of Taggy on the first anniversary of his death and convincing me to join her, this idea has snowballed to incorporate a challenge to suit all abilities and people wishing to join and support us. This is why you will see other people on this team page! It just shows how great the police family mentality is and no matter how brutal the challenge may be there are always people willing to join you and stand together to support one another. 

You may be wondering what on earth the Goggins Challenge actually is and why we are calling it brutal! It is called the 4x4x48hrs because we run 4 miles every four hours for 48 hours.  We will be doing this from on Friday 30th June 2023 starting at 4pm and ending with our last run on Sunday 2nd July 2023 at 12pm. Now anyone who knows Jill and I know we are not runners and this is going to be one helluva challenge! 

Since we posted the about this challenge Heather Westworth and Helen McPake (CFCL Members and not even a member of the blue family), have decided to join the team. Helen is intending to Support Jill and Laura in their Goggins Challenge attempt and Heather is going to do 1x4x44hr challenge devised in Taggy’s honour (based on his collar number) and is going to do 1 mile row/run every 4 hours for 44 hours!

Lisa Baxter also intends to complete the 1x4x44hr Challenge but due to personal reasons has had to postpone completing it with us over the weekend of 30th June - 2nd July 2023.  And this is why you will see Lisa and Heather as Team Members on this page. 

Not only did we want to do this as a physical challenge in Taggy’s honour but we also saw this as an opportunity to raise funds for charity. We have therefore spoken to the Tagg family and they have nominated Team Ruby which is a charity set up to support the Lily Foundation by two serving Lancashire police officers, Nikki and John Marshall. Their daughter Ruby Wren Marshall was born perfectly healthy on 24/02/21 and remained so until she was around 6 months old when she was found to be severely anaemic. Her bone marrow wasnt working well. It would be a further 5 months until she was diagnosed with Pearsons Syndrome; a mass deletion of her mtDNA. This means some of her mitochondria in her cells (which provide the energy for the cells to work) do not work properly.

Also, we wish to raise money for Dementia UK in Ray Bell’s memory, another beloved colleague we lost too soon, and this is why we have the two charities linked on this page. As such our overall target is £2229 (when you know, you know!) and for those of you who aren’t members of the police family we have picked this total as 2229 is Ray’s collar number. 

We have since smashed the original target of £2229, so we decided to up the total to £3006. We have picked this number as our challenge starts on 30/06. We have again through everyone’s generosity reached this target! We are extremely grateful to everyone who has donated and thank you for helping us support two very worthwhile charities. 

We are in no doubt that this challenge is going to be incredibly tough and will test our physical and mental resilience but it is felt that this is a fitting way to remember both Taggy and Ray.