Challenge update 27th October 2022

I am very pleased to report that today I successfully completed the challenge that I had set myself! There were a few spanners in the works, which is why I completed it a month or so later than initially planned, but it did eventually happen!

I cannot thank you enough for your wonderful support. It was a huge motivation to know that I had so many people behind me and it certainly helped me literally smash all of my PBs: I finished my half marathon cycle in less than 45 minutes!!!

I am ever so pleased on so many levels: fore and foremost for the brilliant Petersons Fund for Children of course which will benefit from all your amazing donations but also for my own personal achievement as this challenge has really helped with my rehabilitation making it fun and sustainable at the same time. I know I will undoubtedly feel it for the next few days but its good pain and its for a great cause and fortunately its still half term: perfect excuse to just rest up!

I owe you all a huge thank you!

Martin

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Hi, I'm Martin. I'm 15 years old. I've set myself the challenge to cycle half a marathon by the end of the summer 2022 following a major orthopaedic surgery that I underwent in 2021. It's not my first surgery but I hope it'll be the last one!

I have a disability called cerebral palsy which mainly affects my ability to walk and my balance. One of the issues with my disability is that my muscles don't grow at the same pace as my bones. As a result of several growth spurts, my legs became very crouched, which made it very difficult for me to walk at all. Fortunately, I was able to have a surgery done to help with this.

After the surgery, I had and still have to do a lot of physiotherapy to rebuild the muscles in my legs. One of the physical activities that I took up as part of my rehabilitation programme is cycling as it is such a great exercise for me: it helps strengthen my legs but also helps stretch them, which is what I need to do pretty much every day.

To prove to myself how far I've come, I've decided to cycle a half marathon either indoors on my static bike or outdoors on my trike and I would like to do his for charity. The Petersons Fund for Children is a Surrey-based charity that has been supporting me (as well as others) for many years and I would really love to raise funds for them not only to show them my gratitude but also to enable them to help even more children.

I would absolutely love it if you could sponsor my challenge by making a donation however small (or big!) on this Just Giving page so my challenge does not remain just a personal one.

I'll be regularly posting updates on here with my training until I am actually ready to take up the challenge of cycling half a marathon before 21st September 2022.