This July I will be cycling 900 miles from John O’Groats to Lands End in 6 days. It will be the toughest physical challenge of my life, but worth it because in doing the ride, with your support, I will be raising vital funds for St Luke’s Hospice.
When initially contemplating my challenge (and being a sad individual) I drew up a pros and cons list:
Reasons not to do the ride
1. I’m not fit enough
2. I’m carrying too much weight
3. It will be an enormous challenge
4. I’ll be stuck on a bike with nothing to do but pedal all day
5. I’ll be away from my young family for a week
Reasons to do the ride
1. I’m not fit enough
2. I’m carrying too much weight
3. It will be an enormous challenge
4. I’ll be stuck on a bike with nothing to do but pedal all day
5. I’ll be away from my young family for a week
6. I’ll be raising money for St Luke’s
So, on balance, the pros won with, “I’ll be raising money for St Luke’s”.
St Luke’s is a local charity caring for more than 2,000 patients with life limiting or terminal illnesses each year through the Hospice or their Community Palliative Care Team who care for patients in their own home.
As well as treating their patients’ medical needs St Luke’s strive to ensure they are supported emotionally and spiritually as well. Their aim is to enable their patients to make the very best out of the life they have to live. It is this breadth of care that makes St Luke’s so very unique and vital to its patients.
The running costs for the Hospice are more than £5m per year.
Unfortunately Government funding provides less than 30% of that figure so each year St. Luke’s has to raise £3.5m from the local community to carry on providing its vital services.
So here’s the deal:
Me
Train: 5,000 miles from 1st Jan to ride
Approx 100,000m (62miles) of vertical climbing (or 11 x from sea
level to the summit of Everest)
Ride: 150 miles per day for 6 days
13-15 hours on the road each day
Cram down 48,000 calories
You
Sponsor me (please)
So if you have a spare £3.5m knocking around I would be most grateful for your sponsorship.
However, appreciating that economic pressures are affecting everyone’s disposable funds, I expect that I might have to find more than one sponsor. In fact I know that St Luke’s will appreciate any sum you can offer.
Thank you for your support.
Roy
