Mission Accomplished

Recently Julie Cleary asked for your help to raise money for Different Strokes, a charity which helps younger people in Britain and Ireland who suffered strokes. She was planning to run 50 km in orienteering competitions during May. Here's how she got on ...

May 9th 2008 was the second anniversary of my brain haemorrhage and subsequent stroke, so I decided to try and raise some money for Different Strokes - a charity which helps younger people here and in Ireland who have had "brain attacks" like mine.

Progress Report 1 - 13 May: 23.33km down, just 26.67km to go and thanks to everyone who has been so generous in supporting me to date. I've had a lot of climb so far (1000m +) and loads of brambles at the BOKtrot, but at least the weather has been reasonably kind!

Progress Report 2 - 19 May: 3 races this weekend, including covering 9.2km between 3.15 and 5am on Sunday (while most of you sensible people were tucked up in bed!) takes the total distance covered to 38.35km - that 50k target is now in sight. Thanks to my LOK team-mates for joining me - and continued thanks to everyone who is donating.

Final report - 27 May: Mission accomplished! I hit the 50km mark at 14.15 on Sunday last (Day 2 of the Tamar Triple). In all, I have covered 50.96km with 1935m of climb - that's about 6350 feet (almost 1 1/2 Ben Nevises) - over the 4 weekends, and I am pleased to say that I was still running when the 50km mark came up - it was downhill and I had to get to the finish line ahead of Ronan!

I checked my diary from 2 years ago where it says "A 0.1 km walk floors me, how can I ever contemplate getting back into the woods?" which makes me appreciate how far I have come. So thanks to all of you who have supported me throughout the 2 years and over the last month, and to Ro who still keeps my spirits up when I flag. And despite my hopes for no brambles, my legs are scratched to pieces....

Julie raised over STG£2200 for Different Strokes. If you would like to add to this, you can still do it here.

Incidentally, Julie will be running this Saturday night on the London OK team at the Jukola sever-person overnight relay at Tampere in Finland. Setanta Orienteers and Defence Forces Orienteers also have teams entered.