205 miles of the Pennine Bridleway by bike and by foot in 4 days
Tara Truman reports:
I am so proud to be able to say that I completed the entire length of the 205 miles of the Pennine Bridleway by bike and by foot in 4 days, 60 miles running and 145 miles mountain biking all off road. During those 4 days we encountered flat tyres, wrong turns, massive hills, rough terrain, injury, sore bottoms and huge bulls (the four legged variety) … along with some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever witnessed. There was also lots of laughter, lots of tears and loads of malt loaf and pain killers.
The reason I did this was to raise money for Factor 50 and raise awareness of malignant melanoma, the awful disease that my work colleague Steve Chalk has been battling with for the last three years.
Sadly Steve ex Growing Success and category manager at Sinclair was not well enough to complete the challenge but his very brave daughter Amy and son Joe took on the challenge for him. Us three along with 10 others started in Kirkby Stephen on Monday 17th June and ran for 30 miles finishing somewhere near Settle in Yorkshire. Day two started at 7am and was by far the hardest day for me, missing signs and confusing directions meant many wasted miles and time going off track. Day three took us 28 odd miles by foot to Oldham and on the final day we were joined by Danny Adamson and Steve Davis of Sinclair’s who completed (nearly) all of the final 77 bike miles through the Peak district to finish at Middleton Top near Matlock in Derbyshire on Thursday 20th.
This was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, but the support from the rest of the team and the generosity of the people who sponsored us kept me going, not finishing was not an option.