I am taking part in the Three Peaks challenge raising money for our chosen charity, Helen & Douglas House.

The Three Peaks challenge is considered to be one of the toughest and most challenging walking events in the UK and involves climbing the highest mountain in each of Scotland, England and Wales, all in a 24 hour period.  A Team of 15 from the Three UK Programme Office will be taking part in this challenge which will be attempted over 24 hours on the 13/14 June this year, where our physical and mental toughness will be tested as we experience walking many miles of rough terrain, prolonged physical discomfort and sleep deprivation!

We will be climbing:
Ben Nevis 1344 Meters / 4490 Feet.
Scafell Pike 978 Metres / 3209 Feet.
Snowden 1085 Metres / 3560 Feet.

For the Programme Office, planning comes naturally (of course!), but the execution of this particular project will require a great physical effort from our team and we are looking for many project sponsors to help deliver the goal of raising £3407* for Helen & Douglas House.

*We aim to raise £1 for every metre, totalling £3407

Team leader Nick Martin says,
“The charity we are supporting has a close connection to me as it supported my brother when he was terminally ill, they showed a great level of care and I wanted to show my generosity and ensure others can receive the same.”

Once we determined the challenge we wished to undertake, we very quickly set up a facebook page for the team to keep in touch and organise our training and logistics for the event itself. Our team has begun training on a weekly basis with walks locally around Maidenhead before work each Wednesday whilst individually we have been getting our equipment ready and walking as much as possible and breaking in those shiny new boots! We are about to increase our training intensity as a team with five weekends of walking planned across March, April and May in the lead up to the event. This begins with the ascent of Pen Y Fan (886m), the tallest mountain in Southern Britain on March 26. Photo’s and narratives from our training walks will be posted to our intranet page so that people can track our progress, look out too for social media updates from training events and the challenge in June.

Helen & Douglas House has the time and expertise to care for children and young adults with life-shortening conditions and support their families. The two hospice houses offer specialist symptom and pain management, medically-supported short breaks and end-of-life care, as well as counselling and practical support for the whole family.

Helen House opened in 1982 as the world's first children's hospice. Douglas House opened in 2004 specifically for young adults aged 16-35