New Year Resolution III
And the third, with the repeated warning of remarkable self-indulgence
3. Complete the Caledonian Challenge in under 20 hours
As has been mentioned before on LJ, I have a penchant for long distance walks. I managed 44 out of 54 miles of the Caledonian Challenge in 2007, the full 54 miles in 2008 and then the 30 miles of the Hearts and Heroes challenge in 2009. Despite the hell that was the CC in 2008, I have decided that I will be fitter and lighter this year than ever before and therefore I should take on the challenge again and try to knock about four hours off my time from 2008 - specifically my target is 19 hours but I'll be happy with anything under 21 hours.
By coincidence, my firm seems to have decided that it's a good charity project as well so there will be 16 of us taking part in June - at the moment the plan is to split into fast, medium and slow teams in order to give everybody a chance of completing at a pace that suits them.
We'll see how this turns out and I've yet to go out on a serious walk with many of my future compadres - a couple are previous companions from earlier challenges - so we'll see if I turn out to be fast, medium or slow in comparison but it should be interesting.
I honestly believe that I'm much quicker than I was three years ago and if I can persuade my team not to stop for more than 20 minutes at any of the checkpoints then 20 hours is doable and 18 hours is possible. Still, four months training to go and no idea so far of whether I'm being hopelessly optimistic or not
There's also the fund raising aspect which, to be honest, I'm less sure of success on. I need to raise £500 again and I lack some of my colleague's enthusiasm for bake sales, slave auctions other rag week inspired fund raising events. Most of friends, family and clients have been tapped up before so I can see me making a substantial contribution to the target myself. Still, with professional hat on, at least I'll get some tax relief on the contribution to get rid of some of that pesky 40% income tax.
Next, more exercise . . .
3. Complete the Caledonian Challenge in under 20 hours
As has been mentioned before on LJ, I have a penchant for long distance walks. I managed 44 out of 54 miles of the Caledonian Challenge in 2007, the full 54 miles in 2008 and then the 30 miles of the Hearts and Heroes challenge in 2009. Despite the hell that was the CC in 2008, I have decided that I will be fitter and lighter this year than ever before and therefore I should take on the challenge again and try to knock about four hours off my time from 2008 - specifically my target is 19 hours but I'll be happy with anything under 21 hours.
By coincidence, my firm seems to have decided that it's a good charity project as well so there will be 16 of us taking part in June - at the moment the plan is to split into fast, medium and slow teams in order to give everybody a chance of completing at a pace that suits them.
We'll see how this turns out and I've yet to go out on a serious walk with many of my future compadres - a couple are previous companions from earlier challenges - so we'll see if I turn out to be fast, medium or slow in comparison but it should be interesting.
I honestly believe that I'm much quicker than I was three years ago and if I can persuade my team not to stop for more than 20 minutes at any of the checkpoints then 20 hours is doable and 18 hours is possible. Still, four months training to go and no idea so far of whether I'm being hopelessly optimistic or not
There's also the fund raising aspect which, to be honest, I'm less sure of success on. I need to raise £500 again and I lack some of my colleague's enthusiasm for bake sales, slave auctions other rag week inspired fund raising events. Most of friends, family and clients have been tapped up before so I can see me making a substantial contribution to the target myself. Still, with professional hat on, at least I'll get some tax relief on the contribution to get rid of some of that pesky 40% income tax.
Next, more exercise . . .