A team of four determined schoolboys have recently discovered and been inspired by Josh Llewellyn-Jones and have decided to dedicate their last few hours of lockdown gaming, before school starts again, to raise money for Josh’s charity, which has captured their imagination.

On April 9th, Ben, Kyle, Ryan and Cayden will undertake a 16 hour online gaming and exercise marathon for CF Warriors, a small UK charity run by Josh, a cystic fibrosis sufferer and his brother, Mark. CF Warriors helps kids all over the world who suffer from cystic fibrosis and the charity is growing rapidly.

 Josh is one of these unique individuals in life who it’s impossible to ignore. On the day he was born, doctors told his parents not to expect him to survive through his first night as he was born with cystic fibrosis. But he did…and that was the very first time of many that Josh showed everyone what he was made of and defied the odds against all expectation.

 A difficult journey commenced for him, during which many medical professionals continued to tell his parents that he wouldn’t survive past the age of 30 and that he would suffer an extremely difficult existence. However, the conflicting advice of just one of these doctors when Josh was only 2 years old, was to tell his parents to make him ‘run his legs off’.

 Josh did exactly that and now, at the age of 33, he has triumphed in the face of all adversity and achieved the most incredible things that many people even without that most awful of conditions that he suffers from could only dream of.

 He wanted to make a difference and to show other cystic fibrosis sufferers that they could defy the odds too just like he was doing, by living a healthy life and putting fitness at the forefront, and so ‘CF Warriors’, Josh’s own charity, was created in 2018.

The idea for the charity came about after Josh started to undertake more and more demanding physical challenges, which gained at first local publicity and then more national recognition, where even a TV documentary was made, which really put CF Warriors on the map.

 His ideas came thick and fast, continuing with the most extreme personal physical challenge in 2018, during which he committed to lift no fewer than one million kilos in 24 hours, achieving this with 90 minutes to spare, and proving how he could push himself to the absolute limits of human endurance, even with a condition like cystic fibrosis, and in the process show others what they could accomplish. Not only was he proving how cystic fibrosis sufferers could enhance their longevity and the quality of their own lives, he was showingthe rest of us that there are no limits to what we can achieve.

 Feeling that he didn’t want to keep all the physical effort to himself and this sense of achievement should be shared around a little, his next brainchild, The Warrior Games, was born. This saw teams of people undertake their very own 24 hour fitness challenge, where they were given various exercises to perform individually, for 20 minute sessions, for a whole 24 hours, but not before raising as much money and publicity as they could for CF Warriors. 

In October 2019, Josh embarked upon his most daring challenge yet, aptly named ‘3 Nations in 5 Days’. He swam a gruelling 21 miles of relentless lengths in Dover Leisure Centre. Immediately afterwards, a quick change of clothes andhe undertook a cycle in the most horrendous weather to St. James’s Palace in London where, courtesy of Prince Charles, he was able to refuel and change clothes again so he could run, yes, run, on his own 2 legs, no fewer than 160 miles to his home town of Cardiff in Wales, running his legs off in honour of the best advice his parents were ever given when he was just two years old. It was a triathlon with a difference, undertaken in 5 days with very little sleep, by a truly remarkable young man.

The core aim of CF Warriors is to raise funding to provide goods and equipment that can be used for various forms of exercise to give cystic fibrosis sufferers, in particular children, some relief from this terrible condition and to help them preserve their health and promote longevity.

 The CF Warriors reach has now extended to the four corners of the globe, mostly as a result of the ‘Warrior Packs’ that the charity sends out on an increasingly regular basis. The packs contain a plethora of CF Warrior goodies, from baseball caps to t-shirts and give more and more children a vital sense of belonging and community to help them contend with what is a very lonely, often invisible and isolating disease, with CF sufferers being unable to meet in person because of cross-infection risks.

 There are 10,000 cystic fibrosis sufferers in the UK, andperhaps the 100,000 across the world. Where CF Warriors are concerned, there are no limits to how far they can reach. CF sufferers may not be able to meet in the same physical space, but CF Warriors can bring them together in a way that they could probably have never imagined, with a fighting sense of community spirit and Josh as their role model, giving them access to his online fitness sessions and his inimitable style of motivation to encourage them to take as much exercise as possible to fight the condition and to prove to them that they can be triumphant over adversity too.

Josh’s own personal story, his endeavours and his unflinchingdesire to make a difference to others has even reached the attention of the UK Government. In June of 2019, he was awarded the OBE by Her Majesty the Queen for his services to Cystic Fibrosis Awareness. 

His ambition to make a difference and create a legacy to prove that cystic fibrosis does not have to mean a shortened life ofpain and misery has captured the imagination of many, and CF Warriors and their supporters are creating more ways to fundraise to help make the charity bigger, more successful and more effective in helping cystic fibrosis sufferers live long, healthy and fulfilled lives.

Please support our team of 4 schoolboys and they help Josh in his cause, by devoting their last lockdown gaming hours before school is back to help CF Warriors.