Howard Spargo
Howard's Lands End to John O'Groats in 9 days challenge
Fundraising for Kidscan
Story
TLDR -
- 109 miles a day for 9 days
- Climbing twice the height of Everest
- more than 27,000 additional calories burned
- A full 12 months of training, 6 days a week
- 16hrs a week on the bike, rising towards the event
- 5-10hrs every Sunday for a year!
- I've given up a huge amount of my life for a year for this
- 100% of your donation to charity - I've spent £4k+ to do this
- Kids are dying from Cancer and need our help
Why I'm doing this for Kidscan
Like most of you I had the benefit of being born healthy; the greatest start in life we can have and yet one we easily take for granted. For many children they are born with a fight yet to be started but one that will affect them for the rest of their lives.
Children born with childhood Cancer have to suffer the brutal reality of chemotherapy and how it raviges their growing bodies. Chemotherapy usually affects the fast growing cells in our bodies such as hair and stomach cells, meaning that adult patients often lose hair and suffer intestinal problems. Just imagine the affect on a child's body when almost all of their cells are fast growing. The reality is that chemotherapy for a child can mean organ loss, brain damage, nerve damage, infertitlity... and the list goes on. Ultimately it means a future they didn't even get a chance to plan, set out for them.
Kidscan are one of the UK’s only charities dedicated to solely funding children’s cancer research. They are focused on:
- Improving current treatments for children with cancer to eliminate the side effects
- Develop new targeted treatments that defeat the cancer and save healthy cells
...and so they need all the money they can get to make huge difference to the whole lives of children with Cancer. Your contribution will go a long way to do that as Kidscan are right at the heart of the research being based in offices within the University of Salford. For instance:
- £20 - could fund a bottle of CO2 gas for a cell culture incubator
- £50 - could fund a bottle of reagent for testing drug activity on cancer cells
- £100 - could fund 10 hours of vital cancer research
What I'm doing
Having picked up a bike again after many years I've been out on the road trying to get fit for a couple of years. As a kid I always talked about cycling from my home in Norwich to my Dad's in London (about 100 miles). It never happened. But I also saw the biggest challenge as travelling from one end of Britain to the other. The LEJOG, or Land's End to John O'Groats.
On 4th September 2021 I will set off from Land's End on my push bike and aim to complete the 980 mile journey in 9 days. This will include conquering hills, rain, traffic and more. Some key stats for the ride:
- Riding an average of 109 Miles a day
- Total ascent of over 50,000ft - nearly twice the height of Everest
- Burning up more additional calories each day than a Marathon
- Sleeping in a tent and up at 5am each day
- Riding through wind, rain and tears
I guess you get the picture that this is not an easy challenge and not one that can be taken on without training; and I'm taking the training seriously. For those that I've bored already with my bike chat, i started training in September 2020, a year in advance. I want to be proud of this effort and make it fully worth you parting with your pounds.
Thank you so much for your sponsorship. I am extremely grateful for it but most of all I am extremely happy that between us we can do out bit to give children with Cancer a better start to their lives.
From the bottom of my heart, thankyou.