After months of careful, painstaking preparation and arduous SAS style training, the ‘Taylor Wimpey 3 Peaks Assault Team’ has just left High Wycombe…. (OK we went to Milletts and bought lots of gear and climbed a couple of hills).
Pete ‘The Legs’ Truscott, Phillip ‘No Fear’ Lyons, Javier ‘Just Javier’ Ballester, the Bishop and I, together with our support team (on which more later!) have all set out. The first challenge is driving our van straight with a big TW flag acting as a sail on the side. We will enter dangerous territory (Wolverhampton) to pick up John ‘the Knowledge’
Gainham later today, before meeting the rest of the team in Scotland.
We’ve got so much gear (including special underwear designed by NASA) that we may not actually make it out of the car park!!
….up the M6. After a long hard slog round Birmingham, and feeling pretty virtuous about the progress so far (about 70 miles in a minibus) we have stopped for a well earned rest (and coffee and a pie of course).
Having added ‘the Knowledge’, to the team in the Black Country, we are feeling pretty confident, (I mean we’ve only got about 350 miles of driving and then the actual 3 Peaks thingy to go!).
The sponsorship total has grown to just over £35k, as has the nervousness around the hair cutting things. Lee ‘the Badger’ Bishop, Pete Truscott and Javier have got in first by shaving all their hair off, but let’s be honest you can barely tell the difference.
I’ve got my first blister, which is a bit of a worry since I only walked into the service station.
Two thirds of the way there
* We have spent the last 15 minutes preparing for the final assault. Johns wounds have been redressed, chaffing cream liberally applied, knee supports attached to blistered bishs unstable legs, ibuprofen taken by all to prevent us realising we are in pain, quinine taken for the muscle cramp and our heads are starting to itch.
Challenge base, challenge base, development team four is about to start the final assault.
Final updated:
* We all finished from our team of 9 and I think we’re all very glad we did it and very glad we don’t have to do it again today! We’re stiff, got sore feet, tired and still feeling drenched – and that’s just the support team!
In total, we raised around £40k and the faster team came in 6th out of 43. We lost by 3 minutes to the faster SWT team, but they only managed to catch us by setting up a team of two runners against our five walkers for the final hill!
All 3 peaks updates and blog were written by Peter Redfern.
