Challenge now completed. My son Henry joined us and forced the pace for the older men a bit - he had a train to catch. Despite his old man (me) slowing him greatly on the last climb we still made it in 10hrs and 14 mins.

Thanks to the many people who have made donations, I am sure the money will help save lives.

Thanks also to my good friends, Peter, Richard, Simon and Mark for joining us and making the whole challenge so very enjoyable.

Original Message:-

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. Please read the 'story' below;  if you do then over half of what I set out to do will have been achieved. Puzzled? Then read on!

On 30th April three old men, two men of steel (well they are from Sheffield!) and one young blood (my son Henry) are tackling the Yorkshire 3 Peaks. It is a single day challenge (no mad driving around the countryside) taking in the three highest peaks in the Dales which amounts to 5,200 feet of vertical climb and 25 miles in distance.

The challenge is to be completed in under 12 hours, without a break, and we hope to complete it in less than 10.

So why are we doing this?

Three members of my immediate family have had prostate cancer; it killed my Father, it has badly affetcted two of my brothers - although following their 'radical surgery' their life expectancy has returned to normal. 5 of my cousins also have this dreadful disease so I feel it is right to celebrate my escape whilst doing two very important other things:-

Raise awareness of the disease

Raise some money for the Prostate Cancer charity.

Father adopted a sadly typical stiff upper lip approach - "all a bit embarrassing to talk about - not sure I want anybody's finger doing that to me thank you very much!". He even ignored the classic symptoms so the cancer had spread far and wide before he went to see a doctor. This delay was what made certain the cancer would kill him. 

His four sons learnt from this; it was a very sad ending for such a proud man. Because of the familial history, we were (lucky enough to be)  screened earlier than the age at which the NHS starts to screen for Prostate Cancer (50) - even though none of us had any symptoms.  My elder brother Michael was diagnosed first; he had emergency surgery which captured it just early enough to have stopped any spread. I was given the all clear, but my younger brother Philip was also diagnosed and is now in post-op recovery - again with 100% success. Philip is only 48 - too young to have been considered even a remote risk for this disease. Neither brother had any symptoms and quite low PSA readings. It was 'the finger' that found the problem - so don't be silly and refuse that part of the test! Andrew the youngest of us also apears to have escaped this disease.

So guys - watch out for this killer - it takes more than one in 10, but will kill far fewer if we follow simple precautions and make sure we are tested. Early diagnosis is a life saver; ignoring it is fatal.

Girls - strong parallels about attitudes on Breast and Prostate Cancer have been drawn and the cure rates for early diagnosis are equally impressive. However Breast Cancer is one of the widest known diseases 'enjoying' huge publicity and awareness, whereas prostate cancer does not. Encourage the men in your life to have the checks - it might just save their life.

Three Peaks? One in Father's memory; one to celebrate Michael's recovery and the other for Philip - still trying to regain his former fitness following surgery before Christmas. Yorkshire? Because we were born and bred in Great Ayton, North Yorkshire.

Thank you for reading this; if you can help the Prostate Cancer charity after no doubt donating to earthquake chartities, Sport relief, cycle rides to Cannes etc, the charity and I would really appreciate it -  please do what you can to help.

 

Many thanks

 

Ian