Ovarian cancer is one of the most common cancers in women and each year around 6800 women in the UK are diagnosed with the condition.  Currently, around 65% of those diagnosed will die of the disease. 

Almost all women with ovarian cancer suffer symptoms in the early stages.  If it is found and treated in the early stages, survival rates are over 90%.  Unfortunately however, in the UK currently, in over 75% of cases the diagnosis is only made once the cancer has spread significantly and survival rates are much lower. 

Ovacome is a UK charity providing a support network for everybody affected by Ovarian cancer.  You can find more out about the fantastic work they do here… http://www.ovacome.org.uk/ 

We thought we’d try to raise some money to help support the charity by “going for a paddle”…. 

The Devizes to Westminster International Canoe Race is held every Easter.  It is a 125 mile non-stop race along the Kennet and Avon Canal and the river Thames from Devizes (in Wiltshire) to Westminster Bridge in London.  Paddlers start early on the morning of Easter Saturday (did you know that it’s more likely to snow at Easter than at Christmas?) and paddle throughout the day and night hopefully arriving at Westminster Bridge at some point the next morning.  Along the way there are 77 locks where you have to get out, lift the boat into your shoulders, walk (some people run…..) past the lock, put the boat back into the water and paddle away.  It’s known as the “kayaker’s everest”.  In a good year, 65% of crews that start reach the finish.  In a bad year it’s about 40%. 

Over the years many well known people have completed the race including Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Lord Paddy Ashdown and James Cracknell.  James Cracknell described it as “the most brutal day of sport I’ve ever experienced” and upon finishing Paddy Ashdown remarked that he could only think of one person who’d had a more painful Easter…. 

At the start of June this year we’d never been in a kayak in our lives.  We had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for.  Since June, we’ve done a fair bit of unplanned swimming, learnt a basic technique, managed 13 miles non-stop, been overtaken both by paddlers old enough to be our grandparents and young enough to be our children, done a bit more unplanned swimming, got completely disorientated and steered into the bank of the canal in the fog in the dark more than once….and this winter we’ll be getting out on the water as much as we can.  We need the practise. 

You can find out more about the race here (it’s got a fascinating history and like so many good things started years ago as the result of a bet in a pub) http://www.dwrace.org.uk/ and read the accounts of a few of the amateurs who have tackled the race in recent years here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/dietandfitness/3353796/The-DW-canoe-race-The-common-mans-Everest.html and here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/outdoors/4962934/Paddling-through-the-pain-barrier-in-the-Devizes-to-Westminster-canoe-race.html and here http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/simon_barnes/article5982782.ece .  There’s a lot more to be found online but we’ve decided not to read it as it all says how hard it is! 

It’s going to take 90,000 paddle strokes to get us to from Devizes to Westminster.  That’s 1p per stroke for every £900 we can raise.  Please donate generously and help us to help the people who are affected by this disease that has taken loved ones from both our families.

 Thanks a lot,

James and Kelvin

 p.s. we’ve got a Twitter account “JimKelDW2010”.  We’ll use it to provide brief updates on how the training is going, maybe a link to the odd bit of Youtube footage but more importantly will try to send out regular updates during the race itself so you can see how we’re getting on….if our fingers keep working and if we can work out how.

 

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.