Dear Friends,

To raise funds for The Prostate Cancer Charity, on June 6 I'll be making a complete circuit of the Snowdon Horseshoe mountain range in North Wales, attempting at the age of 66 to scale all the peaks in less than 8 hours and negotiate the notorious Grib Goch ridge (see photo) .

In November 2008, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, a disease which affects 1 in 8 men and kills one man every hour in the UK. The Prostate Cancer Charity was there to support me and help me make the difficult choices about treatment, and I underwent major surgery in February 2009.

Now fully recovered, I intend to crown the route and hopefully raise more money by being photographed doing a handstand on the summit of Snowdon ! Any donation you can make will pay for new research into the causes and prevention of prostate cancer and for support of those affected. So please give what you can and watch this space for further news and photos.

Thank you very much.

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 it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.

Log Date 18th May Training has gone well so far. I've completed a 15-mile walk a week over the past month on both the North and South Downs, and also been building up fitness by making multiple continuous ascents and descents of the steepest face of Box Hill on the North Downs to simulate climbing the mountains. This includes 10 times in a row this morning, which is about 1200 metres of height gain and loss. Weekly yoga class tomorrow, then next walk is on Friday.

1st June Only a few days now before the big day. Feeling confident and ready to go. The handstands are getting quite good so I'm even looking forward to the summit spectacular !

4 June        Travelled to Snowdonia. Decided to do the challenge the following day as the weather forecast for the Sunday was thunderstorms.

 

 5 June        A perfect day dawned fine and sunny. Left the hotel at 6.45am for a big breakfast at Pen-y-Pass before setting out at 8am to climb the first of the four mountains in the circuit.

 

 It is impossible to describe how good it felt to be making the steep ascents and descents and scrambling my way along the knife-edged Crib Goch ridge with complete confidence in such beautiful weather when this time last year I was still recuperating from surgery.

 

 I’m delighted to report that the weeks of training paid off handsomely. I was able to completely obliterate my target time and finish the whole circuit, including the handstand photo-shoot on Snowdon’s summit, in seven hours - a whole hour faster than expected.

 

I would like to thank everyone who has helped to make this special event happen and a big thank you also to all those who have made donations. Put simply, your generosity has made it easier in the future for anyone diagnosed with prostate cancer.