The Rowberrow Triathlon Challenge is a day of pain that we have cooked up to raise money for a very good cause. To be honest we probably got a little carried away in the planning where we forgot that we are in our forties rather than our twenties (bar Jade who is still only 11) and are now looking with some trepidation at nearly four hours of agony!  More on the events later but first a little on the cause:

All the money we raise will go to The Kenya Children's Trust which is raising funds to build a nursery for some very needy toddlers and children in a slum area of Nairobi.  The local community are providing free labour but they need help with buying the land and the building materials so the money we raise will help with this (£1,000 will cover half of the building materials costs).  The Trust will also set up other community initiatives to help the local community meet the running costs of the school in the long run without further dependance on funding from the UK.

You can read more about the charity and why the children need our help on 

www.kenyachildrenstrust.com

The event will be held on March 7th and follows the traditional format of swimming, cycling and running but there are a few differences.  Not everyone is going to take on all of the legs and we are going to let people take a break between events to catch their breath, pluck up courage for the next bit or just cry and feel sorry for themselves.  The only rule we are working with is that the first event starts at one in the afternoon and the last event has to be completed by midnight (of the same day).  

So here are the events:

The swimming will be a supervised event where each competitor is challenged to swim as far as they can in 55 minutes which is an extremely long time and could mean swimming more than 2 km.

Cycling will be to take on a tough off-road mountain bike route via some very muddy tracks and steep bits to the highest peak in the Mendips.  In all this is a 15 km ride with over 1600 feet of ascents that will take a little over 2 hours to complete.

Finally we are going to take a 5 km  run around Cheddar Reservoir.

Laurie, Jenny and Simon are going to take on all three legs, Jade is doing the swim and the run, John is going to do the swim.  

Our last thought for people who want to support the charity, is to pass this on to anyone looking to do a charity event or sponsor a charity, but unsure of which charity to choose.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. 

So please dig deep and donate now.