Hello Friends, 

Chloe's marathon has been run (great experience, I'd highly recommend it, although miles 18 to 21 were horrific, and far worse was attempting to actually move in the following days). Now we're onto a new challenge. Hugh and Chloe are attempting to cycle a humongous 6811Km (4232 miles) from west to east across the USA, taking in a few mountain ranges whilst we're at it. 

Hugh casually enquired one day 'shall we cycle across America', and Chloe shrugged her shoulders and said 'alright then'. Since then, Chloe has learnt to actually ride a bike (not kidding) and spent hour upon hour in the gym pumping iron, whilst Hugh has mostly been sitting on the sofa enjoying repeats of Futurama. There was a slightly disastrous 'test ride' in Holland (it may be flat, but it is very windy...), which we did to 'see if we liked cycling'. We didn't remotely like cycling round Holland, but somehow, at an undefinable point, we seemed to have past the point of no return, and the bikes, flights and a seemingly ridiculous amount of kit has drained our bank accounts. 

We will be blogging along the way, so you can check us out at http://isthisaholiday.wordpress.com/. (FYI, this is not a holiday). 

I don't understand Twitter, but Hugh tells me that we're @isthisaholiday. 

If you're interested in the route that we're taking, the very handy Adventure Cycle Network has created a nice route, which we had no idea about when we started. How very useful of them, here it is. http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes-and-maps/adventure-cycling-route-network/transamerica-trail/

We are supporting War Child, a small charity making a big difference to children in conflict zones around the world. It would be great if you could click on some of the links below, and find out a little more about some pretty massive problems in our world. If you would like to donate, then that would be even better. 

We believe that investing in the future generations of current war zones is one of the most important ways for charities to spend money, for so many reasons. War Child is doing massively important work.

http://www.warchild.org.uk/ has a huge amount of info about the charity. They have projects in Afghanistan, Iraq, DRC, Syria, Uganda, and the Central African Republic. 

http://www.warchild.org.uk/impact/stories has individual stories of children they have helped

Children being used as soldiers is particularly harrowing. You can find out more about child soldiers here - 

http://www.warchild.org.uk/issues/child-soldiers 

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/unreported-world/4od#3198006 - an Unreported World episode about child soldiers in DRC

http://www.warchild.org.uk/about/our-finances gives details of how War Child spends its money. 

I'd hope that no one would think otherwise, but we are funding the trip ourselves. Any money donated goes to War Child, not to our snazzy bikes!

Thank you very much for reading this far, and thanks a million if you decide to donate. 

Cheers,

Chloe and Hugh