claire morison
Kates Crew go wild
Fundraising for Neuro Wellbeing Centre
Story
The challenge
To carry Claire's Sister Kate, who suffers from MS, in her wheelchair around Snowdon, through bogs, rivers and forests...
We were told by Claire, who is both a liar and unable to navigate her way down a straight road, the course would take two hours. As it turned out, the average times are between four and five hours, the record, which was set by twenty-two marines, stands at 1 hour 57 minutes. We had two girls and eight less than useless men.
Pre-planning and preparation
Like true city dwellers, we arrived in the wet Welsh mountains in shorts, t-shirts and flip flops. The other competitors were not impressed. We began to moan immediately about the midges, the rain, the clean air... And so, like Brits abroad, we got stuck into the local tipple and soon forgot our woes.
As dawn broke so did our spirits. It rains in Wales, heavily. Tents can only keep so much rain out, it was not a good start.
We were given two pieces of advice in order to complete the course: Make sure you wear walking boots; and be sure to have a good night sleep. And so, with our shiny white trainers, a thumping headache and a skinful of booze we set off for the start.
It would be fair to say that no one was giving us any chance whatsoever. Rather than politely whispering behind our backs they chose to openly mock us. We were forced to adopt a trench warfare position and give ourselves an arbitrary and ridiculous target to get us through the day, 3 hours. The titters turned to belly laughs.
The briefing
Laughable. The whole affair was joyously devoid of Health and Safety. Have you done this before? No. Have you a whistle in case you get into trouble? No. Ah, well, you'll be up to your knees in mud and up to your waist in water. Marshalls will be somewhere up on the mountain. Good luck.
The mud bath
We had, in fairness, underestimated the challenge. Teams comprise of a minimum of 14, well shorn, fit, sober individuals. We ticked none of those boxes. The course was 10k, up a mountain and through virgin forest. We soon found out the mud was up to our waists and the water up to our necks, the briefing was, as we thought, somewhat lacking...
I've not the words to describe just how difficult this was, the course would have been a struggle at the best of times but with the rain, the mud and the wheelchair it was exhaustingly difficult. A couple of photos are attached although as no photographer was willing to follow us the whole way the real experience cannot be captured. I give you two examples of what we went through:
Tim, our glorious leader, went ahead to test the mud. As he stepped forward expecting a knee high descent, he disappeared from view, under mud and water, it was clear it was at this point the challenge was to become a struggle.
Stuart, the quiet engine room of the group, spent five minutes squirming like a mating sea lion in order to get himself out of some quicksand like mud. In the end it took three people to pull him to safety.
The finish
With a 1k jog downhill to the final three river crossings we knew we were going well. We had overtaken the one team in front of us and were closing in on the finish line. The clock was against us but onwards we ploughed. Up the final bank we pulled, down the final hill we pushed and the finished line we crossed. Two hours, fifty eight minutes. The fastest time of the day. A fantastic team effort.
At all times our job was to keep Kate clean, dry and safe. She was incredibly brave as we hurtled down ravines but not once did she stop smiling, not once did she shout. But at all times her knuckles were white with silent fear.
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