On Saturday, October 5th, the following members of the Foresight team – Daniel Willoughby, Damienne Mitchell, Ben Dyson, Thomas Filby, Alex Youngs. Greg Blease and Callum Kingsley-Rivans, completed the Yorkshire 3-Peak challenge.
Living in another County meant an early start of 4:45 am. Arriving at 6:20 am, at Horton-in-Ribbleside designated car park to the sight of obviously seasoned walkers wearing all the right, sensible gear including head torches. It was instantly clear that we may have underestimated the challenge we were about to face.
We arrived at the base of the first peak just as the sunrise. It was a beautiful sight and the consensus was ‘This isn’t going to be too difficult’. The first peak was a steep ascent with some sections where we had to help others up but once at the top, it all seemed worth it. Spirits were high, and we felt relieved that we were pretty much a third of the way there now that we had done the first peak… only to have a kind gentleman inform us that we had only done 2 miles so far.
After a long but pretty 8-mile walk to the next peak, we all began to realise that wearing trainers was not the best idea as the blisters were already forming. It was a long, steady incline with some muddy parts that unfortunately took Damiene victim as he found himself on his back in the mud. We made it up the second peak in good time, other than Callum who realised that he had left his hiking sticks at the bottom of the mountain so back down to get them before meeting us all back at the top.
The final peak was close to us so walking there wasn’t too bad. However, at this point, we all had wobbly legs and we felt a little intimated at the thought of climbing the most challenging peak.
After taking a small break we did it, we climbed to the top. It was a great feeling, we took pictures of ourselves and the scenery and then started our descent down. We had 10km to finish the loop and only 90 minutes to do it so we set off quickly, we had blisters, and chaffing and were unsure how our legs were still carrying us at this point but together we pushed on and eventually made it back to the car with a sprint finish to get us a final time of 9:56:31.
Reaching the finish line was fantastic. It had been a real challenge, more than we had anticipated. There had been no training beforehand and we had been naive in thinking that that we were going to be doing some simple hill walking. It was so much more than that.
The best bit – we have raised over £2,500 for this one event for The Mouth Cancer Foundation a charity that has become close to the Foresight team’s heart. Thank you to everyone who donated, we really appreciate it.
We are already looking into our next challenge and we have on going in-house events to raise monies for this cause. Here is the link if you would like to donate
ForesightWS- MouthCancerFoundation
Wishing you a speedy recovery Mark, we can’t wait to have you here for the next one!
Dan Willoughby
