UPDATE 08/11/22

Hi everyone! I have reluctantly decided to call it a day with my walking and fundraising (I will finish my current challenges, and walk an extra 10.3km to bring my walking/exercising to a total of  4,500.km). 

It's almost 2023, & I have some fantastic fundraising ideas for another charity. They also support autistic children and adults, and, in 2022, they have been running a campaign to recruit at least 100 people to raise £1000 each over the year. I'm aware it's a bit late for that, but I plan to raise that amount by doing various things over the course of 2023. Obviously, I don't think it's fair to split my attention between these 2 charities, so I've decided to focus solely on this new charity for 2023. Hopefully, I can give this fundraising effort one final push (and keep my donation page open for a few more months, depending on how much traffic I get to the JustGiving page) and then close this chapter and move on to another for 2023. 

Olivia 

UPDATE 11/10/22

So, I've realised there's no way I'm going to do 6000K by the end of the NAS' 60th-anniversary celebrations (in January). I've done a lot but I'm not a superwoman, especially now I'm at university! So I've given myself a  bit of leeway. I'm planning on reaching 6300km (hopefully more!) when the NAS reach their 63rd anniversary in January 2025. Ideally, I'd like to reach 6200 in time for their 62nd anniversary in Jan 2024, but I'm not sure 15 months is enough to hit another 2,543km (it might be!) and I think it's significant to end the journey on an anniversary and at the end of one year and the beginning of the next; it signifies the closing of one chapter and the opening of another. 

Just a quick recap of what I've done (not all of it has been walking! Some has been indoor cycling, a trend started during the lockdowns when we werent allowed out of our houses and I have an indoor bike. A little bit is the bike now, but mostly walking, a bit of swimming and some indoor cycling when I'm motivated to work out in my mini indoor gym. And there's the time I hiked a mountain, fell over and jnjured my ankle, almost fainted from sunstroke or something, threw up, then fell down multiple times on the way down destroying both my thighs/butt cheeks and my phone. Luckily both could be fixed 🤣) 

• Ring of Kerry - 200km
• Camino De Santiago - 773.9km
• English Channel (cycled that) - 33.8km
• Marathon to Athens (think that was mostly swimming on holiday) 42.2km
• Angkor Watt - 32.2km
• Land's End to John O Groat's (length of the UK) 1744.2km
• Berlin Wall - 48.3km
• Inca Trail - 42.2km
• Kruger National Park - 80.5km

Total (inc in progress challenged below) 3,656.7km

Ring Road (551.9km out of 1332.5km) & Côte D'Azur (107.5km out of 160.9km) are still in progress. 

I feel bad about the lack of updates; I will update each time I finish a challenge (I'm currently doing 2 at a time and splitting my daily walking distance between them; one shorter one, and one longer term one)

UPDATE 24/02/22

I've recently discovered that 2022 is the National Autistic Society (NAS)'s 60th Anniversary, and as a fundraising initiative to coincide with World Autism Awareness Week (28th March-2nd April 2022) they are asking people to get involved with a challenge involving the numbers 6, 60 or 600. I've taken that one step further and have decided to commit to walking/exercising a total of 6000km (and hopefully raise £6000 in the process) in honour of NAS' 60th anniversary. So far, since my initial 10K walk for the NAS was cancelled due to COVID in 2020 and I decided to take on a virtual challenge instead (11th June 2020/89 weeks ago) I've completed:

- Ring of Kerry - 200km around the Iveragh Peninsula in Ireland 

- Camino de Santiago - 773.9km through France & Spain

- English Channel - 33.8km across the English Channel 

-Marathon to Athens -42.2km - the original Marathon route

- Angkor Wat - 32.2km through Siem Reap, Cambodia

- LEJOG - Land's End (St Ives, Cornwall) to John O' Groats (Scotland) AKA the length of the UK (1744.2km) Currently completed 1538.2km, with 206km remaining.

- Ring Road - 1332.5km through Iceland. Currently completed 247.7km, with 1084.8km remaining.

And I've also planted at least 11 trees from exercising/taking on these virtual challenges (every time you hit a 20% milestone, they plant a tree. Or save 5 plastic bottles from the ocean. I may try that one.)

UPDATE 26/03/21

I've delayed the Ring Road challenge for now. I'll continue tackling it, but I've signed up to walk LEJOG; 1743km across the UK from Land's End in Cornwall to John O Groat's in Scotland. Something I'm thinking I might try (like I wanted to with the Camino De Santiago) in real life when I can.

I've also walked 34km across the English Channel. The 11th of June will mark 1 year since I've started these challenges which was borne out of the cancellation of a 10K group walk with the National Autistic Society. I want to keep walking and fundraising until I hit the 2 year mark, and may ask friends and family to sponsor me instead of giving me presents for my 21st birthday.

UPDATE 28/12/20

I've now finished the Ring of Kerry AND Camino de Santiago 🥳🥳. Next up, 1332km Ring Road around Iceland and maybe alternating a smaller challenge to keep me motivated. I'm still deciding whether to stop in June after a year, or continue until I reach a set goal (or maybe evem finish all the available Conqueror Challenges, which is tricky as they keep adding more. Maybe I'll call it quits in June 2022. What do you think? DM me on Instagram - @livs_camino_de_santiago_trek

UPDATE 07/10/20

Just got my medal for the Ring of Kerry 👏👏🥇 Now tackling the Ring Road challenge as well, which is 1332km across Iceland (something I also wanted to do in my gap year, which Corona ruined) for a current total of 2,306km. I've walked 643km so far since the 11th June. Once I've finished the Camino (another 330.4km) I will end up alternating this Ring Road challenge with another one (maybe a shorter one, like the 90km Hadrian's Wall challenge, or the 42km Inca Trail) as I am doing currently with the Ring Road and the Camino 

UPDATE 04/09/20

So, I've found out through the Facebook event page that there is now an official deadline of 1st October for the NAS Spectrum Night Walk. I want to clarifiy that this does not mean I'm stopping on the 1st October. In fact, I'm planning to carry on. I have managed to extend my fundraising page, so it'll stay open for donations until the 31st December 2021 (as of now; I can extend it again if I need to, ) Ideally I want to carry on walking until the 11th of June 2021, (doing extra challenges to boost my kilometerage, as I think I would have finished my initial 1000km by the end of 2020) so I would have been walking for a year 

UPDATE:  

I've decided I'm adding the Ring of Kerry/Iveragh Conqueror challenge, to up my game to 1000km 🥶🥶

Hi guys! I have decided to take on a virtual version of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimmage from France to Spain (774km) in aid of the National Autistic Society (https://www.theconqueror.events/camino/) and I'll post regular updates on my instagram, livs_camino_de_santiago_trek , so please follow me on instagram to see my progress 😊 - I'll update here with major (or minor) milestones as well.

The reason I'm doing this is because I am autistic and I understand the judging looks my mum used to get and I think sometimes still does because she's raising a 'naughty child'. The fact I have a severe case of ADHD (according to my psychiatrist) doesn't help. In my defence, I had no clue about the ADHD until I was diagnosed at 16. If I hsfn't found out about my autism on my 11th birthday, I'm not sure when or if I would have ever been told about it. Unfortunately, we are still in a society where autism is seen as a stigma (to the point where some people refuse to get their kids vaccinated because to them, autism is a bigger problem than an otherwise fully curable disease. Why? Loads of super-smart people are autistic or are rumoured to be. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are rumoured to have it, so is the creator of Pokémon, Satoshi Tajiri. Courtney Love has it, as well as Dan Ackroyd and Darryl Hannah. Mozart and Einstein were retrospectively diagnosed with it, as was Stanley Kubrick, Michaelangelo, Emily Dickinson, Andy Warhol...).

I would love to live in a world where society recognise I'm autistic and recognise I need help, and provides it, but realise that I am more than my autism diagnosis. I don't need society telling me what I can or can't do or that I'm too 'normal' to be autistic and need the support (WTF is normal, anyway?!). 

Nobody does. It's demeaning to think that someone can't do something because they might need a bit of support doing it.  Some people who are more profoundly autistic might need more help than someone like for example, me, but it doesn't mean that they can't do something, and to put those limitations on autistic people, or people with Down Syndrome, or any other neurodiverse challenge, is, quite frankly, ridiculous and outdated. It's like saying someone can't code and learn to work with computers because they're a woman, and it's a man's job. A LOT of Enigma codebreakers at Bletchley Park were female. Would you say that a gay person can't do X or Y because they're gay? Course not, because it's discrimination based upon sexual orientation, and to suggest that neurodiverse people are unable to do something almost borders on discrimination too. 

Instead, I want people to have an open dialogue about the struggles they face and how neurotypical people can help them as well as empathise with them (which ironically, autistic people aren't good at. We're good at empathising, it's just recognising when to empathise. If someone is showing their emotions clearly and it's a situation I can empathise well with, I will empathise. If I find that their emotions are not clear enough, I won't empathise with them. Not because I don't want to empathise, but because I am unable to see that it's a situation I can empathise with and lend an ear for the person to talk to), and for society to realise that underneath the autism, we are HUMANS and all we really want is to love and be loved, and to be accepted like other people are. Wasn't it Shylock who said ' am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food... as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?' Even though those immortal lines were written by Shakespeare c.425 years ago, they are still timeless and pertinent in a 21st-century society, where there is still racism, misogyny, sexism, homophobia and the like.

ALL of us, no matter colour, creed, sexuality, gender identity, (dis) ability, are humans with the same skin, the same heart, the same lungs. 

Autistic people are a minority, but one that has a lesser voice and presence than other minorities like LGBT+ (the FDA just banned shock therapy for autism, and sick people are praying on parents desperate for a cure because of the spread of misinformation by selling MMS that kills 'autism parasites'. You're not killing the 'autism parasites', you're killing the CHILD. MMS is essentially bleach). 

The fact that #ActuallyAustistic people are a minority who are often silenced and criticised by the adults and the parents who think they know better (the parents cannot empathise here, unless they are autistic themselves, and then they would let the autistic person voice their own experience) and that we have a smaller voice and presence, as well as the judging my mum has faced, and my own anxiety that either people would 'discover' I'm autistic and give me shit for it and tell me it doesn't exist, or I would tell them that and still get the same response, is why I chose to do this night walk. Unfortunately, the night walk was cancelled due to COVID 19, and I got a Facebpok ad for a virtual walk, and Camino De Santiago is something I was planning on doing this year (which didn't happen) so I'm settling for the virtual alternative instead. This, and also the slight attention-seeking at telling people I'm charity fundraising a 772km walk, but then that's my ADHD talking), and from what I've seen the NAS and their initiatives, for example, having an 'autism hour' in shops (personally, I think that staff should be trained in autism, and adjustments thought about to make it easier for people like us, but it is a MASSIVE step in the right direction) are amazing, and they care about people like us. 

My goal of £200 may not seem like a lot, but it's the minimum I need to raise for the charity (I was initially supposed to be taking on the Spectrum Night Walk for the National Autistic Society, which was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, so I've decided to tackle the 773km Camino de Santiago walk instead, and now the 200km Ring of Kerry trip across Ireland & the 1332km Ring Road across Iceland) I would love to raise as much as possible. It would be amazing to try and see if I can raise £1 (or even more!) for every km I walk! But having £1000 as a starting  goal seems a bit much, so I'll edit the goal as I go along. 

Thanks for getting this far because of my long and rambling speech, but I felt like it was important and needed to be heard, and I felt like I needed to to get that off my chest.