October 22, 2013

Tim’s Walking Challenge

Tim is a Shared Lives Carer who lives in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, and supports a brother and sister who are now in their 20s but have been living with him since they were children. All three are involved in Crest, a locally run charity which provides social and sporting opportunities for people with learning and physical disabilities. Crest also supports children’s homes in Romania, raising money to equip community homes for young people leaving institutions, and visiting regularly to deliver toys, household items and specialist equipment. Tim and the two young people he supports are all hoping to participate in Crest’s visit to Romania next year.

In the meantime Tim, a keen walker, decided to set himself a challenge in order to raise money for Crest and the Romania project. In July, during our surprising heat wave, Tim walked round the whole of the coastal path of the Isle of Wight, a distance of 68 miles, in 23 hours 58 minutes. The challenge was to complete the distance in 24 hours, so Tim found himself running the last section, to end up at Ryde where he had started on the previous morning.

Tim makes light of his achievement but it’s clearly not one for the fainthearted (or those of us who are less fit). He did the whole walk without rest, just brief stops to take on water and food supplied by a friend who acted as support. He puts his success down to good preparation (he walked 87 miles along the Trent and Mersey canal on a training weekend), plenty of water, and his Panama hat. He suffered no injuries or blisters. He says ‘it was an amazing experience, one I’ll never forget, the weather was fantastic and I saw the island at its best.’