Thanks for visiting my fundraising page.
I want to give people options to choose how they donate, so I have three primary charities I want to raise for: Two in honour of my dad, The PSPA & the IOW hospice and due to the swim and my love of the environment, especially around my island, Surfers Against Sewage. I want to give people the opportunity to choose where their hard earned money goes and for each charity, I am very grateful. Please click on the pages below to read about each charity.
Here is the challenge:
Pre-March plans Summer 2020:
🏊🏻♂️ 96 km swim AROUND the Isle of Wight (estimated 24-26hours) 🚴🏻♂️ 93km bike ride AROUND the Isle of Wight 🏃🏻♂️ 42km (>marathon distance) run ACROSS the Isle of Wight... 3 DAYS
POST COVID PLANS, TRIsle 2.0:
13km swim / 100km bike / 42km run... ONE DAY
This challenge is for my dad, Mark Blanchard. Born and raised on the Isle of Wight, dad was a keen athlete that could regularly been seen swimming at Gurnard Bay or more often than not, cycling around the island. He was chairman of Vectis Cycling Club from 2013 until 2016 when he was diagnosed with Progressive Supra Nuclear Palsy (PSP). This challenge is to raise awareness for the condition and the support that is required to care for a loved one that is diagnosed with it.
As the name suggests, PSP is a progressive neural disease that officially falls under the Parkinson’s umbrella. But where Parkinson’s disease is caused by damage to a specific area of the brain (the basal ganglia), PSP affects the entire brain. This results in a very aggressive deterioration and affects everything; balance, mobility, speech, sight, memory, decision making… everything. Dad was diagnosed officially in 2017 although the family suspect he had the condition for a couple of years before this. Estimates vary but this very rare condition affects around 3 in 100,000 and because we don’t fully understand it, there is no cure and no way of slowing the progression.
