Oh My Word it's frickin cold out here...

A long day Saturday we got back around eight at night from london. Tired but happy, we had a few jobs to do email to send etc. Half Past two in the morning I managed to crawl in to bed. Oh did I forget to mention that we had agreed to be on the moor for a training session at eight fifteen. which meant getting up at half seven... JOY.

Well half eight the next morning there we are parked up near Haytor on Dartmoor to for a nice Circular walk of about four or so miles nice an easy... Ah that when the wind gently blew past us, it was like scene from a movie me and Darren made eye contact and through gritted teeth uttered the ***** me that's cold. Darrens fingers where already blue and I could name a few parts of my anatomy which where inverting themselves.

A nice leisurely stroll across the moors and we where wishing that all the good preperation and safety equipment... don't forget your gloves you will regret it!!

By Bryn
Stumble It!

Beautiful weird and wonderful training days

What a weekend.

Me and Darren have finally got our training truly under way. We're looking to up our training to three or four days a week, and quite happily it's by choice. Now normal training running road or trail and then a bit in the gym a few press ups and maybe a swim (not darren he'd rather drown. Then there are things you can do that still class as training although you dont realise until afterwards, when your body aches in lots of weird and wonderful places. Our weird and wonderful weird training session started out as a gift from my missus. It was one of those extreme adventure vouchers.. it read along the lines pick one of these and enjoy!!!! I chose an ice climbing session at an indoor centre place called Ellis Brigham. I thought I'd take Darren along for the trip.

We ended up in London It wasn't the worst of drives we where booked in for two o'clock and just hit the outskirts of that great city by twelve thirty, and then we hit traffic, we started to get a bit twitchy after it took nearly thirty minutes to get about three miles. We decided to ditch the car strangely we ended up parking in mayfair just off the corner of hyde park. Our lovelly little Megan aprked next to the Ferrari's and top of the range Audi's was a very strange sight. Darren a hater of all confined spaces was most pleased to be shuffled on to the tube across london. Thirty short minutes later we arrived at Covent Garden. We arrived with about twenty minutes to spare. The instructors Sam and Martin where on hand to show us what ice axe went where and how your crampon stuck in here and there, one whole hour later me and Darren where strangely slightly knackered. But a few kind words from our Instructors made us feel somewhat better. Thanks to the guys we'll be going back again next summer. It'll be a good bar for us to see how our fitness has improved....

So a big up to Martin & Sam at Ellis Brigham a fantastic afternoon

- Bryn
Stumble It!

MOUNTAIN BIKE RIDER - runs a short story on us...

Great to see, more bloggers and action media taking an interest in our event. Look at http://www.mbr.co.uk/news/event_news/. Great support, thanks MBR. Keep spreading the word, people. - darren

News article, someone's see us!

Check out:: http://blog.cheaptents.com/ the great people at their blog have run a FULL blog page write up on our launch and why were doing this event. Take a look, they have also offered us the chance to forward them updates as we train. Great chance for charities, sponsors and supporters to see us growing online. So pop along and leave a comment or two. - darren

A little bit crazy

Receiving roughly 60 to 130 emails a day is pretty amazing. I know this will cool off when the sponsors email run drops down and the next new charity event kicks in. We'd like to thank all those companies that at least took the time to reply, big respect to you.

I just wish everyone that said "NO!" could at least have donated £1, our charities would presently be £1,138 pounds better off. - Darren

Blisters, Miles, Minutes

There are days and days, weeks and weeks. Now i'm not saying good and bad just different.

I've realised that training really does pay off you have days when at the beginning your don't want to be there and days where you wouldnt want to be any where else. As me and Darren lolop (describes our running style) our way around the hills we generally chitchat, about the event, fundraising, who what where when... kinda really boring for the cows, flies and rocks who have to listen to us. However on occasions we have ephinays like the title above this is why we train for every ten blister we get now it will save us one on the day, for every mile we run now it will make every metre we climb easier, for every minute we shave off our time as we get fitter it will save us well maybe a few minutes and seconds.

We took some awesome pictures which I managed to delete hence there being nothing on this update.

I've been lagging of late, by that I mean just goign through the motions turns out I have an infection in my sinuses which is causing me to have alsorts of side effect coughs colds wheezing basically feling rotten. I've also managed to tear some cartilage in my knee again. The wheels are in motion to get it sorted, possibly could mean a minor operation we will have to wait and see.

I've carried on the fund raising hit the £1000 mark for the GNR 2009. So all monies raised now are being split 50/50 between my entrance in the London Marathon 2009 and and UKEC 09 (that's ukeverestchallenege 2009 for short). over £300 raised so far only a few more noughts required and we will be there.

Have to say Darren has been working his socks off, he's managed o genereate a lot of interest and is getting some real results of support. But a lot of knock backs in the process. So if your reading this and you have a friend a mate who could offer us some support whether it's free socks or donation please please please contact us ukeverestchallenge@ukeverestchallenge.com

Onwards and Upwards

Sponsor my broken spirit!

What a really tough week this one has been. Have we been running up Ben Nevis or grinding out 10 milers every night? No!, this week I've been on the marketing and PR trail trying to pin down sponsors, it's felt like I've been poking a lion with a stick. Having never asked for anything from anyone before it's a very odd feeling approaching people out the blue and firmly getting the email door shut in your face.

Complex, frustrating and impersonal. If people don't think we're scammers or spammers the answer is frighteningly similar from big business "unfortunately [that's corporate for BUT and you know what's coming after a but], although your event is great, we only give money to our own charity annually, sorry, good luck". My inbox can proudly announce that it holds 83 of this type of reply.

There have been one or two rude emails, faceless responses that more or less states please just sod off and play in a field. I sent a few draft's below was the final one I settled on. Some say I'm being too pushy others not so, either way here's my mailing, you decide.
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Hello
I know you must get lots of these emails and it might be a really 'BIG ASK' or not normally an area you could give us any support or exposure in, but please have a read and see what you think. We are a genuine UK event, all my/our contact details are included in this email.

We are a genuine and compact non-profit endurance event team, our beneficiary charities are;

• Help for Heroes
• Children with Leukaemia
• National Association of Crohn's & Colitis Disease
• Skill Force Development Charity

If you would like to speak to our contacts at the above charities we can happily forward you their details to confirm our event. We will be in their newsletters and on their sites shortly. I know sponsoring the whole event is possibly very unrealistic but there are many areas you could support us on a much simpler level.

[I'll not start pulling on the old heart strings, but each of the charities is personal to us and were not picked at random]. All funds
donated will be listed on our site, all equipment and gifts donated will be sold off in an auction format one week after the event, even our boots if they hold together!

Our event is called UKEVERESTCHALLENGE.COM and we plan to cover TEN of N.Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England's most rugged, highest and maybe one or two more dangerous peaks. In a mad dash of blisters and energetic fundraising over a very short four or five day period in August'09. If we meet the criteria we could also bag a possible Guinness Record for this type of event.

Simply we are two normal guys with big hearts trying to push ourselves hard and change our lives to deliver a unique and difficult challenge. We hope you will consider your business to support our national event.

I know a lot of companies make honorable and sizable charity donations every year, sadly smaller grass roots fundraising events such as ours get sidelined quickly, as we are more 'out the box' or thought of as novelty. I hope you can see some way passed this.

It would be a great boost if your company would open talks with us, regards the many marketing, advertising and equipment event sponsorship opportunities that exist. Our fundraising journey has only just got underway last week so it is a prime time to help us in the start up stages. If you think you would like to be associated with us in any way and help us achieve a successful event for our four charities, please get in touch.

It doesn't have to be financial at all, even if you can't support us on a purely business level maybe you could on a personal, even a donation of £1 is fantastic, it all adds up. We need exposure in newsletters - in shop windows - on notice boards, equipment provisions, printing of stationary/leaflets or maybe an old item of stock to auction, advice, contacts & leads, bit of promo, utilising your company's skills for us, the list is endless.

Transforming our bodies in to running, scrambling and hiking endurance machines in only ten months time is a daily challenge all on its own [I've lost 2 stone in two months as it is!!]. Plus learning all the ups and downs of the charity fundraising sector, so if you have the skills or can offer support, please drop me an email - and lets talk.

Sorry the email was so long but you only get one chance to get over what we are doing before someone clicks delete. Thank you for your time, and reading this far. You have NOT been added to any mailing lists.

All the very best

Darren Edwards - UKEC'09 - Team Member
My personal mobile: 07XXXXXXXXX
ukeverestchallenge.com
ukeverestchallenge.blogspot.com

That's better!

Phew...it was becoming very frustrating training so hard only to hit physical walls every week. In the last month I've seen little if any improvement in overall fitness levels. Possibly this is the key moment that many people give up, but for Bryn and myself I guess that's not an option. We have our goals and we must achieve every single one of them.

I know the body goes through stages as fitness levels increase slowly, I feel momentum is now with me to push harder. Todays run gave me back some much needed reward and confidence. At last I could see a difference, we covered a technical route over a good variation of terrain, with two short energy sapping accents and lots and lots of mud!

My lungs are starting to relaxing under the work load towards the end and today I found that my recovery time is creeping up. I've turned a corner and was finally given some small reward, a few cuts and a couple of blisters but well worth the effort. Another bonus; I moaned less as I just focused on the task in hand, something I am sure Bryn is very happy with! - Darren

Glorious training days

What a day I had managed to as always book 3 things on one day and try to have a personal life.... What was I thinking.

I had a booking to fundraise at Wyevale, so me and Darren agreed an early start 0700 on the moor short and sharp 4 miler as fast as we could. It meant getting up around 0615, I woke at around 0500 to howling winds driving rain gainst the bedroom window and honestly thought why oh why are we doing this, next moment the alarm was sounding it was up dressed and out. I managed to forget my map my first aid kit... Note to me pack the night before and stop leaving things to the last minute!

The weather had changed massivly in the hour I had been asleep the winds had dropped the rain had stopped and the clouds had started to break up.... We actually got our ass on the moor 0720 and managed to get up hill and down "tor" without a single knock bump or scrape and in 60 minutes shaving about 7 minutes off our previous time.

The plan is to get a little more adventurous for our next few outings...

Bryn

The summit of our first peak

What a couple of weeks. 2 weeks ago Monday we had secured 1 charity (Children with Leukaemia)then by Wednesday we had 2 (Skill Force Development) by Monday last week we gained our 3rd (NACC), then it took a few days a few emails a few hours of fretting and we managed to get our 4th and final charity (Help for Heroes). In the final hours fo daylight on saturday the 8th Darren got the website all sorted. It feels like we have already climbed one of those mountains and the view from the top is beautiful. Got to hand it to Darren he has put in some serious hours getting the website all sorted, thanks mate now we can look forward to getting down to the real nitty gritty of ome serious fund raising!

Bryn

The Moments in-between

The days fly by when your having fun.
So far so good but the training days are being interupted my pre-aranged fundraising (dressing up as Mr Tickle at a number of West Country venues), family events (my missus graduating) and Trips out the latest being a bungee jump 160ft at a place near Windsor (Datchett). I have a few more fundraising days and a trip up to london Ice Climbing (indoor) and a bit of Fund raising for the London Marathon 2009 and then I can at last focus singularly on "UKEC 2009".

But I promise to keep the training hours up as much as possible, including a move on to the push bike to work at least twice a week and a dip in the pool at least once a week!!

Darren's after a rower to supplement his training.. I cant wait to see him suffering as much as I will be.. Good luck bud.

Bryn

SLIP TRIPS AND GROANS

Early morning restless night, open the curtain thick drizzly miserable fog.... I was thinking why am I awake.. oh yes that's it we are off for a run again?

On the way quick text from Darren dont forget. yup I had forgot, a quick u turn I was back on the road within minutes by the time we got on the hill it had brightened slightly the wind was driving the drizzle and fog away. The idea for the day was a route we had done previously that took us approx 2 hours. one of our first it was us getting to know each others stride, pace etc. But this time to ramp it up and crack it under one hour.

It started well my lungs burning feeling slightly sick and that as just the first hill. Just before the half way point there is a stream, previoulsy crossing it was a thought out process calm and under control... well that was untill Darren fell in it last week! As I pause to consider my options this 14 stone hulk belted past me splashing through the stream shouting "yahooooooo come on" then laughing like a manic. I threw caution to the wind a followed suit. A short sprint later we where at the half way point just outside our predicted time at 33 minutes. We cracked on on the return leg al going well we managed to pull back some time, enough we thought to pause to take photographs... We realised we needed to push it to get down to the finish in time, one thing we had noted the amount of surface water on the ground running off the hills had made footing tricky causing us both to slip and slide along the way. Both of us had managed not to fal on our arse that was until the last 100 metres where I side stepped a rock and my feet just left the floor I dropped like a stone my elbow hit the ground then hit my ribs as I made a thrrrrrrrppppp sound sliding along on a cushion of freezing run off water. Darren tried to stop causing him to start to slide aswell. I managed to bound back on to my feet winded and laughing that painfull I'm hurt but alive but yup still hurting.

All in all classic training session. total time 1 hour 7 minutes. Not a bad result.

Bryn Posey