‘In effect, we are climbing one third of Everest,’ said Andy Quirk, describing the challenge to be undertaken on Saturday by a group of work mates raising money for charity.
Andy, along with Julie Crossley and work colleagues from engineering company Swagelok are to walk the route of the Manx Ultra Marathon, starting in St Paul’s Square in Ramsey and finishing (before pub closing time, they hope) in Port Erin.
Julie started raising money for Eva Rose’s Garden, at Rebecca House children’s hospice, in memory of Eva Rose, her daughter who died at nine weeks in 2011 after being cared for by the hospice. The multi-sensory garden was opened in 2013 but she’s now raising money to create a sensory fountain in it.
Saturday’s walk is one of a number of challenges she set herself to complete during the year.
‘So far I’ve done the new year’s day dip in Laxey, some five-kilometre runs, the Tough Mann challenge, the End to End walk, Viking Longboats and this is my next challenge.
‘I’ve rather foolishly said I might do a half marathon in November. If I do that I might take December off,’ she said.
Over the past few months, the friends have been out most weekends hiking around the island in preparation for the weekend’s challenge. The route will be slightly different from the Ultra Marathon to avoid private land. In some other instances special permission has had to be sought beforehand.
As Andy points out, it’s still a significant challenge at walking pace, with approaching 8,000 feet of elevation, or the equivalent of climbing Ben Nevis twice.
‘People say it’s only 32 miles...so what? But I think it’s more of a challenge than when we did the Three Peaks in 2015,’ Andy said.
Money raised from the three peaks challenge went towards buying a slide for the garden.
Taking part on October 1 are Julie and Andy, Barney Helleur, Martin Tvaroh, Laszlo Molnar, Pauline Wilkinson, Jon Bygrave, Kewin Kerruish, Graham Coates, Paul Jennings, and on October 15, Mark McCallum and Tyrone Smith from Derivco and Ivan Jackson from the MUA. Drivers are Zoe Salmon, Jon Crossley, Liz Peterson.
Donations via JustGiving.com/julie’s 2016 team challenges for Eva Rose’s garden.