My father passed away in June 2023. He was an eccentric, extremely intelligent, one of a kind. For many years he volunteered for Remap in York. Remap is a national charity that uses the expertise of volunteers like my father to create inventions that offer solutions for the individual needs of a client living with disability. They are each items intended to make something better. The ones my father produced were very practical in their nature, applying mechanical and electrical capabilities that I have never managed to nurture. His final invention was kindly completed by other Remap volunteers and I received an update from the charity sharing how happy his last teenage client was with the intricately wired and delicate ‘picker upper’

My challenge is Hyrox. What is Hyrox? I hear you say … Well, Hyrox is fitness racing. To be specific Hyrox combines both running & functional workout stations, where participants run 1km, followed by 1 functional workout station, repeated eight times. Said workouts being rowing, skiing, push sled, pull sled, farmer’s carry, sandbag lunges, wall balls and my personal favourite, burpee broad jumps. Think cross fit and running. When I say ‘my’ challenge I mean ‘our’ challenge as foolishly myself and Mr G have entered the challenge as a mixed double. Marriage guidance will doubtless be required.

Personal training was something I began in 2021, as i adapted to living with rheumatoid arthritis. This chronic condition had developed in 2020, leaving me unable to walk without pain when it was at its worst. Thankfully medication is helping me to manage the worst of the symptoms now, and personal training has helped me to believe that my body can work - albeit with a lot of encouragement. So entering Hyrox was a challenge I set myself - part of my ‘solution’ for managing the RA and my response to it. Remap had enabled my father to try to find solutions for other people. So It seemed apt to bring the two together, in memory of my father, and to do a little good.