Vince and I are both keen hikers, having recently completed the Severn Trent Mountain Challenge for Water Aid, as well as doing various other sponsored walks. So this had me thinking, "what's next?" STMC was tough, but now I wanted a bigger challenge; something that would involve lots of commitment and enthusiasm.

I started off by googling walks and hikes around the country and abroad. But it wasn't until I was sat at home watching a wildlife documentary that I considered Mt. Kilimanjaro. Once you've seen it in all its glory, however, it's hard to think of anything else that can compete. Firstly there is the huge mountain itself, but then you see the beautiful nature around it and it's breath-taking. I knew that I had to experience this in person.

The next part was trickier. How do I convince people to join me on this mad adventure? I knew Vince would be up for the challenge. But Vince is taller, fitter and faster than me and so I wanted to recruitment some more (shorter) friends for the support. When I first put the idea out there at work I was astounded by the level of interest. I think we had 50 or so people asking for more information. However, when things started to get serious, some people found that it wasn't for them. We ended up being left with a team of hard-core, crazy and, more importantly, up for the challenge of their life types of people ready to train.

We then had a team meeting and decided that this challenge should be meaningful, since it was going to be hard-work and test us both physically and emotionally. We knew that people would be keen to sponsor us, so we decided to do the climb in the name of charity. It didn't take long for us to pick a charity. The Midlands Air Ambulance do such a fantastic job in our home region, and their hard work and selflessness is prevalent in every one of our lives. Then we had to come up with a figure. It needed to be realistic, but we are motivated to make a difference. We wanted our contribution to equal the challenge we had set ourselves up to face. And so we settled on a team total of £10,000, and we are doing incredibly well with our sponsorship so far!

Wish us luck!!