The question we get asked the most is 'what is it?’.

A valid question as it's not exactly a main stream sport. So in answer to that we will be - swimming in Lake Zurich for 3.8km, cycling around the hills of Zurich for 180km and then running around Zurich for 42.2km. That makes the grand total of 226km. To put it in to context that some might understand it's about the distance from Wembley stadium to the Millennium stadium.

The next most popular question is ‘over how many days’. Well we hope to be completing it anywhere between 11-14 hours. The reason for the big range is that none of us have attempted anything this big before and there are many unknowns which we can prepare for but won’t be able to account for until the day.

The last question is usually ‘why?’. Well I’m not entirely sure any of us could answer that very well, apart from the stock answer of ‘great way to get a tan’, and shrug our shoulders. In truth we all have our individual reasons and hopefully once this is done we will have some free time to bore you all with how ‘I looked in to the abyss and it looked back’ and ‘if you’re not on the edge then you’re taking up too…..’ well you get the idea.

We have all taken this very seriously and given as much as possible to it and have had some great times along the way and I’m sure once it’s done we’ll miss it. What we hope to achieve is very personal but at the same time we hope to be able to convince you to part with some cash to help a great charity SANDS. Many people will know them and many will have got to know about them through Sarah. SANDS offers support for parents and their families whose babies are stillborn or die during or soon after birth. It is a highly dedicated charity that tries to help people at a very difficult time. We hope you can help us raise money to support these guys in continuing to do the great work that they do.

At West London Sands alone (WLS) funds that have the biggest impact on parents include Photographic Paper - £100-£150 a month (this includes cartridges) and Digital Cameras - £150 each. The digital cameras are an amazing gift to hospitals, so that parents can take photos of their dead babies that can be kept forever (of course in emergencies parents never get the chance to plan for such horrific eventualities), unlike previously where they only had Polaroid’s which sadly fade in time.

It seems very small amounts but we hope that we can raise a significant enough amount of money to really help and support what these guys, many pro bono, do. Thanks for your support and we will let you know how we get on.

http://www.uk-sands.org/

http://ironman.ch/en/00_news/00_aktuell.htm

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GYrvH03yQTA