In February 2018, Team BMS will be attempting an extreme alpine challenge: Everest in the Alps, raising money for The Brain Tumour Charity. This will be the second 'Everest' ascent. The last one, in 2015, raised a whopping £3M for The Brain Tumour Charity and its Everest Research Centre.
We will be ascending 8,848 metres – the height of the world's largest mountain – on skis over a period of four days. That’s a total of 32 hours climbing (twenty different ascents), with only three hours of downhill skiing over the entire challenge. Each day we will burn over 10,000 calories, the equivalent to running three marathons back to back per day, for four days . . .
It sounds like madness, but we’ve got a great team committed to the challenge and I’m convinced we can do it. And it’s all in aid of a charity that is very close to the compnay. Our colleague’s nephew, Toby, was diagnosed with a low grade brain tumour at the age of five. Despite surgery and gruelling chemotherapy, the position of the tumour on Toby’s brain stem means that it cannot be fully removed.
Brain tumours are indiscriminate; they can affect anyone at any age. What's more, they kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer, yet just 2% of total cancer research funding goes to this area and little is known about causes, which means treatment remains inadequate. So come February, I’ll be taking part in The Everest in the Alps Challenge: The Second Ascent to raise funds for The Brain Tumour Charity. We want to raise money to fund vital research planned by the Everest Research Centre.
