First the reason why we undertook this challenge. We wanted to raise money for two charities close to our hearts. The first charity is Marie Cure Cancer Care. Last year we lost to cancer two wonderful people who were very dear to us. Peter was one of our oldest and closest friends. We first met Peter in 1975 when we joined his walking and climbing club and have stayed close friends ever since. We also lost cousin Frank who was truly larger than life and a great one for storytelling. Both were the life and soul of any get together and we miss them both very much. But we know that Peter, Frank and their wives benefited from the care and support of Marie Curie Cancer Care at the end of their lives, so we wanted to raise money to support the ongoing and very important work.
The other charity is Water Aid whose aim is to help get clean safe water, sanitation and hygiene education to the poorest people in the world. It is a shocking fact that 4,000 children die every day from illness caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation. Clear water is something we take for granted here in the UK and David is a member of a local fundraising group.
Money raised. I am pleased to say that we have exceeded our expectations and raised £1,550 for Marie Curie Cancer Care and £ 1,639 for Water Aid. This means we have raised a total of £3,189 - so thank you to all who have sponsored us or contributed to our fund rasing.
The steps. We have been counting our steps from 25th July 2011 finishing on Christmas day when we were once again in Scarborough. We set an original target of counting 2 million steps and we easily did this by October, so we set ourselves new individual targets: Jean to count 1 million and David 2 million and which we also achieved. In fact by midnight on Christmas day we had counted 3,494,321 - just short of 3.5 million. This is approximately 1,750 miles which is apparently the distance of walking from Lands End to John O'Groats and nearly back again! A few facts about our steps
Jean | David | |
Individual totals | 1,134,317 | 2,360,004 |
Average steps / day over the challenge | 7,366 | 15,325 |
Maximum steps counted in one day | 30,065 one day whilst walking the Cleveland Way | 34,491 one day whilst walking the Cleveland Way |
Minimum steps counted in one day | 0 when ill or 1,092 on a 'normal' day | 3,226 |
Only twice did I beat David's daily score including the 24th December. On Christmas Eve he forgot to put it in his pocket when he changed to go out for a meal in the evening!!!!! Most times he was well above my score - see the graph my daily step count is shown in blue and David is in red.
The blog - remember that I had never even read a blog before this never mind written one! But someone suggested this would be a good way to tell those who are interested how we were doing. What I did not know is that for each blog site Google gives the blogger the stats of how many people have accessed it and from where. This morning, 22nd January 2012, the total number who have found their way to this blog site is 1,343 and they come from way beyond the UK! I do hope those from USA, Russia, Germany, France, Ireland, Malaysia, Canada, Latvia and Taiwan have found our blog interesting and hopefully amusing!
Although the challenge and the fundraising has now come to an end, recording the steps counted on our pedometers is now habit and our walking will definitely not stop. So can I encourage anyone reading this to get a pedometer, get out walking and see how many or how few steps you walk in a day.
But I end by saying another thank you on behalf of us both to everyone who has helped us raise so much money for the two great charities: Water Aid and Marie CurieCancer Care
Jean and David Penny
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