Three Peaks Challenge

Minibus Playlist...

2008-07-17T16:03:00.003+01:00

Just thought that people may want to know the secret of our success. Well the England Cricket team were psyched up by Johnny Cash's 'Ring of Fire' when they were victorious over the Aussies in the 2005 Ashes Series... The Three Peaks Challenge team had their own musical motivation.

The track listing as played in the the minibus on the official Three Peaks Challenge 2008 playlist is below. The final three tracks are what Matt the driver made us listen to on repeat for three hours solid... after which we were extremely eager to get the hell out of the minibus and up the mountains come rain or shine!

Rolls Royce donation

2008-07-11T18:59:00.003+01:00

Many thanks to Rolls Royce for donating £200. Furthermore, a collection on the shop floor raised a further £105. Absolutely fantastic news.

ASDA COLLECTION

2008-06-14T18:44:00.003+01:00

On 14 June we stood at the main entrance to our local Asda collecting for the charity. From 10am to 5pm, we chatted to lots of different people about our challenge and in doing so, we raised £197.10.

Many thanks to everyone who donated their loose change on the day.

RAFFLE

2008-06-13T12:18:00.005+01:00

Our raffle managed to raise approximately £300 which is absolutely fantastic. The following prizes were up for grabs:

2 Tickets to see South Pacific provided by the Assembly Rooms
Family ticket to Twin Lakes (x2)
Family ticket to Conkers
£25 gift voucher for Samways (x2)
Family ticket for Quasar
2 First class return tickets on any routes served by East Midlands Trains
Bottle of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Champagne provided by Majestic Wines
Boxes of Chocolates provided by Thorntons
2 Odeon cinema tickets

A draw took place on Friday 13 June – winners have all been notified.
Thanks to everyone who bought a ticket and supported our charity.

£250 donation from the Shelter Maintenance Company

2008-06-13T09:29:00.002+01:00

The Shelter Maintenance Company have kindly donated £250 towards our £2000 fundraising target for Cancer Research UK - The Bobby Moore Fund. They provide services for bus operators and local authorities who are responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of bus waiting areas.

Tenpin donation

2008-06-13T09:16:00.005+01:00

Many thanks to Tenpin, who are based at Foresters Leisure Park, Sinfin, for the donation of complementary tickets for Quasar.

Derby County

2008-06-11T10:00:00.004+01:00

Many thanks to Derby County FC for donating a home shirt. We'll try to raise as much as we can for our chosen charity

Yet more raffle prizes

2008-05-23T09:59:00.002+01:00

And the prizes keep coming... Thorntons in the Cornmarket Derby have provided more raffle prizes. Thank you very much!

Majestic Wine Raffle Donation

2008-05-22T13:13:00.002+01:00

The very kind people at Majestic Wines, Ashbourne Road, Derby have supplied us with a bottle of champagne for our raffle. This is currently sitting in a very safe place in the office, and will be unveiled on the day of the draw... Friday the 13th of June 2008.

T-shirts and promotional posters

2008-05-17T14:07:00.013+01:00

Many thanks to Multiprint of Derby for providing us with t-shirts and promotional posters at a massively reduced cost. Visit their site at http://www.clothing4work.co.uk/ for all your printing and clothing needs.

Radio Derby interview

2008-05-16T09:53:00.003+01:00

On 15 May a couple of the team attended a live interview on Radio Derby. We chatted with the presenter of the evening drive time show (Ross Fletcher) about our expectations and our chosen charity. Ross was a fantastic chap who made us feel at ease straight away – hopefully we’ll receive a few more donations.

If nothing else, we got to see inside a studio and experience 5minutes of fame.

Scafell Pike training run

2008-05-16T09:49:00.001+01:00

Sunday 11 May saw us all up at 5am in the morning!!! The roads were fairly clear, and we all arrived at the start for 10am.

Scafell has two main routes to the top, and this training session was hopefully going to help us decide on the best approach for the challenge in July. One group ascended from Wasdale Head and the other from Seathwaite. The plan was to meet at the top and compare times.

The Wasdale approach took 1hr 45min to climb and 1hr 20mins to descend. However, the Seathwaite approach group took much much longer. They were 2hrs 40mins climbing and 2hrs 10mins descending (they got lost many times).

We still managed to meet at the top and have a group photo.

The weather was baking hot and made hard work of the task. I certainly drunk a full 2litre bladder of water!

Having looked at the seathwaite groups pace and recalculating the correct path, we’ve been able to calculate which approach will be best on the day. The options are as follows:

Climb and descend from Seathwaite
Climb from Seathwaite and descend to awaiting bus at Wasdale
Climb and descend from Wasdale

Looking at the driving times on our SatNav, the time saved climbing Wasdale is outweighed by the extra journey time on the mini bus. We seem to get the same times for the overall challenge whichever approach we use.

The safest option may be to climb and descend from Seathwaite – this is nearer the M6 and has less likelihood of meeting slow moving traffic in the Lakes. I’m sure as a group we’ll change this plan later though!!

Stannage and Burbage Moor walk training walk

2008-04-21T13:14:00.012+01:00

Hello,

First of all I must point out that the following training walk took place on the 6th April - yes I know it a bit late, however it's taken a while to get the pictures back from the photographer.

Anyway below is an account of the Stannage and Burbage Moor training walk; also below is a short summary of this walk for those of you with little time.

Short Summary of walk

We got lost! - many, many times over!

Stannage and Burbage Moor walk

Well as most of the group were either washing their hair, taking their cat for a walk or making any other excuse not to attend (basically because Snowdon is the week after) it was just little old me and Ian Wallis (sound familiar? First training walk was just me and Richard). Anyway this was fine as Ian had been running around here numerous times and like we said - "only an idiot could get lost around here".

It was a crisp winter morning; fresh snow has fallen the previous night blanketing everything in a white thin layer. The sun was out and all was calm; we set off early and started walking at 08:30 hours. At 08:37 we got lost (sound familiar? yes again my first training walk with me and Richard ... maybe It's me???). Anyway we headed along the white fields and hills towards Burbage Moor; it was a well made path so only an idiot could get lost at this point!

After retracing our steps (and crossing a stream twice) we found the road that we should of been on and headed to the summit of Burbage Moor. It was beautiful at the top; you could see miles around. We found the "yellow / orange" path we were supposed to pick up and followed it all the way to the reservoir.

I must now point out that we didn't actually want to go as far as the reservoir, we missed the path we should of taken. Anyway we then decided to travel around the reservoir and pick up the path on the other side.

With immense joy we picked up the path we should of been on and started to head on the last stage of our epic journey; it was a pretty well made path so only an idiot could get lost!

Yep you guessed it! After some back tracking, choice words and looking at the map and compass we did eventually make it to the path we wanted. With the village, that we started at, in site we headed towards the car.

It was supposed to be an 11 mile walk; however after a few wrong turns, or as Ian put it "spontaneous decisions to extend the training walk" we added an extra mile! We made it back to the car, all we had to do was drive home ... only an idiot could get lost now!

Mount Snowdon 13 April 2008

2008-04-14T09:55:00.003+01:00

We arrived at a rainy and cold Snowdon for 10.30am. The climb was made tougher by the sheer amount of snow and ice. This made the climb quite difficult, both physically and technically. We reached the summit in 2 hours 5 mins, where the visibility was about 5metres. The descent took about 2 hours 30mins, but we did get lost at the top for 45mins due to the snow drifts and lack of visibility.

This was the toughest test we’ve had yet, however, Snowdon shouldn’t be totally covered in snow when we complete the challenge this July. As I write this today, my thighs are really aching – but it was worth the climb for the absolutely spectacular views when we descended the mountain.

The following link shows some of the photo’s we took http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/orena45/SnowdonWalk2008

(Video link to follow)

Ilam Country Park walk

2008-04-02T11:27:00.006+01:00

With the prospect of Snowdon in a couple of weeks, a few of us decided to get an extra walk in. We took a day off work on Tuesday 1 April (officially of course). We started and finished at Ilam Country Park in Staffordshire. The walk was approximately 9.7miles, and included 1650ft of ascents. We headed north along the hills adjacent the River Manifold taking in the village of Wetton and Thors cave. We then crossed the river and headed back through Throwley Halls.

The weather was dry with sunny spells, but the ground was very hard going. The majority of the walk was on soft wet grass and mud, putting loads of strain on the old thighs!

The whole walk took about 3hrs 48mins, which includes a lunch break, and time spent exploring inside Thors Cave. The average speed whilst walking was about 3mph.

An excellent training walk with spectacular scenery.

Team raise £150 for Derby Mountain Rescue

2008-03-28T19:34:00.002Z

The team have raised £150 which we have donated to Derby Mountain Rescue. We held a small prize draw within our department at work and decided to give all the funds we gathered to this worthy cause. The lucky winner was drawn at random and walked away £50 richer!

Derby Mountain Rescue are a completely voluntary emergency service who attend callouts 24 hours hours a day, 365 days a year. Their main function is to search for and rescue injured walkers or climbers, but this can extend to helping find vulnerable people who are reported missing in rural areas.

More information can be found on their website: http://www.derbymrt.org.uk/

Easter Monday - Kinder Downfall

2008-03-28T19:24:00.002Z

Despite a bit of a dodgy weather forecast, Ian B managed to round up Ian W, Mat Otter and myself to take another trip up to Edale, Derbyshire on Bank Holiday Monday. A 07:30 start from Derby saw us arrive in Bowden Bridge shortly before 09:00. The walk started at the Bowden Bridge car park and continued along the narrow road leading from Hayfield up to Kinder Reservoir. We followed the road for approximately 1km before reaching Kinder Reservoir where we circumvented the countours around its northwest side.

After a fairly arduous climb up William Clough we arrived at a point between Kinder and Mill Hill. There was a fair amount of snow on the ground and as we made our way south-east we faced a short steep ascent onto the Kinder plateau. Once on Kinder we trekked through the snow in an attempt to find the wreckage of a air crash. After managing to locate the various scattered pieces of plane, we headed 2km along the edge of the plateau towards Kinder Downfall.
Following a spot of lunch at the Downfall we continued walking along the edge of the plateau heading towards Edale Cross. From this point there was a long gradual descent back down towards Bowden Bridge car park.

There were some great views from the top of the plateau, made all the better by the snowfall that had settled on the hills.

Wilkinson's make generous donation.......

2008-03-18T11:52:00.003Z

Many thanks to Wilkinson's for pledging £500 to our charity. This is large step closer to reaching our final target, and an extremely generous donation.

The Roaches

2008-03-18T09:27:00.007Z

Our longest walk so far proved to be a good test of our fitness. A brisk Sunday morning saw us tackle ’the Roaches’ in Staffordshire. Thanks to Alan, we were able to track out progress and were quite pleased with the outcome. We covered 13.7 miles in just under 5 hours, which gave us an average speed of 2.7mph.

Nine of us turned up for the walk, which saw a large mixture of obstacles, including mud, rocks, rivers, styles, crags, gulleys, heather and quite blustery conditions. We started in Gladbach car park and completed the anti-clockwise route. The planned walk was 12.5 miles, but we took a couple of wrong turns!!

In all, we covered 792m of ascents, which is approximately 60% the height of Ben Nevis. The day remained dry and the scenery was spectacular.

A brief stop half way at Ye Olde Rock Inn Public House was certainly very welcome!

Another donated raffle item......

2008-03-03T17:31:00.002Z

fantastic!! Twin Lakes have kindly donated a family ticket to add to our raffle. Many thanks to Emma and the team at Twin Lakes.

Another kind donation...

2008-02-26T17:16:00.005Z

We have just received yet another item, which we will plan to raffle off in a few months time. After a very slow start, we are now having some joy in receiving a few very welcome donations.

We have so far approached many companies, but it has been hard going and we have not been very lucky in attracting donations, despite the efforts we are going to in order to prepare for this task.

However, the nice people at Conkers have come up trumps! Thanks very much...

Thanks to Royal Crown Derby

2008-02-22T09:00:00.004Z

Many thanks to the kind people at Royal Crown Derby who have donated an extremely collectable porcelain paperweight. After a bidding war, we managed to raise £38 for this lovely item. A cheque is on its way to Cancer Research UK.

If you wish to donate an item please e-mail us - threepeakschallenge2008@ekit.com.

Mam Tor

2008-02-19T18:52:00.010Z

There is a bit more momentum to the preparation now as the number of team members attending our training walks is on the up. The word is getting around the office that the training walks are well worth the effort.

Nine, initially energetic, team members set out from beneath Mam Tor in the Peak District and completed a circuit of ascents and decents of the ridges. In total, we covered a total of 500m of ascents which we completed in a combined time of just over an hour.

In terms of the ascent of Ben Nevis this compared well, so we are all pretty chuffed with how this walk went for us. Obviously, there were quite a few flat bits in between, but in terms of analysis of the walk, we were able to use Ian B's nifty phone with GIS functions to calculate this.

All in all, this was a fantastic day to be out walking, and we are steadily making progress towards the final challenge.

Edale Training Walk

2008-02-04T11:53:00.002Z

Well… it’s that time of month again – another Three Peaks Sunday training walk! Whilst Andy and Steve were braving the elements mountain biking up in The Lakes, a few others decided to take a trip up to Edale, Derbyshire.

Ian B, Mat, myself and Stan did a 6.5 mile walk, consisting of a leisurely stroll from Barber Booth to Upper Booth before a much more strenuous climb up the infamous Jacobs Ladder.

Once we had gathered our breath at the top, we struggled across an exposed Brown Knoll in 20mph winds, which to make matters worse was pretty wet underfoot too. We eventually finished the trek over Brown Knoll a little dirtier, but still in good shape – all our kit seemed to be functioning well.

We all noticed that Mat’s boots seemed to have some miraculous ‘self cleaning’ properties that meant his boots looked like they were brand new, whilst the rest of us had our gaitors and boots coated in peat!

The last leg of our walk had us dropping down the Chapel Gate track, which led us back towards Barber booth via Manor House Farm. This was a slightly shorter version of our planned walk with a stop at a local pub to finish.

All in all, we had a pretty good training walk, which has left all of us waiting for the our next outing in mid February. Watch this space for the next update!

It's the New year; and with it a new training schedule

2008-01-08T12:24:00.001Z

Yes indeedly it's 2008 (Happy New Year etc etc)

Now a few of the twits have been clowning around; pretending that drinking beer was a good way to start training (no ... it's not). However all that was to change, now in the new year things were to get serious... A training schedule!

Basically I came up with the idea of heading into the nearby Peak District, every two weeks to start, to get fitter and to tryout new gear! Everybody was incredibly enthuastic and I thought i had 10 for the first walk on Sunday the 6th January 2008....

.... Well I suppose two wasn't bad; yes that's right me and Richard set out at 8:50am, on an icy January morning into the Peak District. It started well; we got 10 minutes out of Derby before Richard remembered he left his walking boots in his kitchen. Top tip number one check you've got all your kit... So we will start again.

Yes that's right me and Richard set out at 9:15am, on a icy January morning into the Peak District. We had looked though an AA walking book and decided our destination was Hartington (God help Hartington).

Arriving at 10:15am we sprung into action; like a Ferrari F1 car Richard and I were speedly on our way. However unlike a Ferrari F1 car, we were going the wrong way. Top tip number 2. Don't give Richard the map!

The walk was about 7 miles and the weather was fantastic; it wasn't that cold and the sun was beaming through a cloudless sky. Even the ground being frosty helped our journey, making the ground more firm instead of a muddly field. The views were fantastic and there weren't many other people about (well; what other twit would be up at 10:15am, on a Sunday in January, for a walk).

After our initial set backs we rarely had any other problems and soon we had made it to Pilsbury Castle. This was an 11th Century motte and bailey castle, used for a couple of decades to defend the valley. Obviously there wasn't much left of it now, however it was easy to picture how it would of looked like.

When I said we rarely had any other problems I, of course, spoke too soon. When we arrived at Crowdicote, we found the farmer, very nicely, had ploughed the field we had to walk across. This was made even more difficult as the field was on one side of the valley. No problem!!! We took a forced detour around the field and up to the top of the valley. Unfortunately Richard let me go first, which i gratefully obliged, straight into the worlds biggest bog .... 8 minutes later and two very muddy boots I pulled myself out onto edgetop.

Apart from stopping for lunch and cautiously walking through a field full of bulls the trek was pretty straight forward. We arrived back in Hartington 4hrs later and I looked at the stats my pedometer had given:

Distance: 7.556 Miles

Total Steps: 13,303

Kcal burned: 470.03

After a well earned drink in the local "Posh" pub we left, heads held high that we two had not only conquered Hartington, we also had started our Three Peaks Training!!!