Success!!

We completed the walk in 8 hours, a better time than anticipated.

What a fantastic achievement. It was a beautiful day, the countryside was superb, the company great. Everyone was very supportive, especially my daughter, thank you Sonya for sharing the experience with me and inspiring me on to the finish when the going got tough.

Many thanks to all of you who have supported me in this challenge, I really appreciate it.

 

Do you think that I can successfully swap these gorgeous shoes for the “not so gorgeous” new walking boots and complete the Alzheimer’s Memory Walk Challenge?

I started walking with the Kennett Valley Hash House Harriers about 5 years ago.

We start and finish at the pub, the Walkers route is 2.5 to 4miles, the Runners 6 to 8 miles. I quickly discovered that I preferred fast walking and enjoy it most when a fellow Walker will join me in completing the longer routes. When the walk has finished I always change immediately into my heels before entering the pub, therefore the standing joke with the Hashers is whether or not I actually walked in them!!

The first I heard of the Marathon Challenge was when, arriving home one evening a couple of months ago, I found a message on my answer phone from my daughter telling me that she would like to complete the challenge and wondered if I would like to support her through it. My initial thoughts were that it would be a great thing to do and it would be fantastic to take the time to train together too. My daughter is a very dedicated person; she has lost a lot of weight over the last year, it soon became very apparent she is applying the same dedication to her training and is doing extremely well, far better than me. I am very proud of her.

So, why am I attempting the challenge?

I am still looking forward to sharing some of the training time with my daughter, also upping my fitness levels has to be good, although I must say that I have never walked this far in a week, let alone just one day, scary, however I am looking forward to it.

However, by far the most important reason is the fact that I have been touched by Alzheimer’s / Dementia in both my own family and the families of friends over the last couple of years. I find it so very sad that wonderful people who have led good lives as wives, husbands, mothers and fathers are so cruelly changed by an illness over which they have no control, they have not deserved and for which there is currently no cure.  Their own and their families lives are changed beyond recognition and the work that the Alzheimer’s Society does to support them through this is invaluable.

Please help me by giving generously to sponsor me; I would really love to try to make a small difference by attempting this challenge.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my Just Giving page.

Some facts:

One in three people over 65 will die with dementia Alzheimer's Society research shows that 700,000 people in the have a form of dementia, more than half have Alzheimer's disease In less than 20 years nearly a million people will be living with dementia, this will soar to 1.7 million people by 2051 60,000 deaths a year are directly attributable to dementia. Two thirds of people with dementia live in the community while one third live in a care home. Delaying the onset of dementia by 5 years would reduce deaths directly attributable to dementia by 30,000 a year.

 

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