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Wednesday 11 July 2012

Snowdon - We did it!

Becky getting cozy with the crisps!
The weather in Chorley was dire on Friday. I was receiving numerous texts and tweets off people half wishing me luck, half hoping the weather would improve. It didn't.
We packed everything in the car and it was way too full...there wasn't enough room for any erm..."extra refreshments" and Becky was being smothered by two multipacks of crisps and a wheel!

My many wheels then travelled to Snowdon in three parts. My "everyday" chair was in my car, the front wheel of my Mountain chair went in Sandra's car from St Helens and the two main wheels and body went in Matthew's car. For some reason the grey, pessimistic clouds decided to combine with my car rage as we found ourselves stuck in traffic between Widness, Runcorn and over the Welsh border...

It's a good job the inside of my car wasn't being recorded...

After an entire set of Jessie J's "Domino" had been played to try and perk our spirits up and cool my road rage, we finally got moving and had a very "British" moment in Wales, cheering and listening to Andy Murray get through to the Men's final at Wimbledon. Grinning, driving past a "Milk bar" and "Snowdonia Antiques" I said, we'll never forget this guys!
From then on, I knew things would get better.

We weren't the last to get there, allowed my team to finally meet each other, set up a soggy camp and cooked fajitas!

You know you're somewhere with Back Up when you get woken up at 6am by Bazza shouting "MORNING!! GET UP!" to the entire camp site.

I failed to find the accessible showers, so straight away I was feeling very conscious of my fringe...the fact that I was being filmed by Matt O'Donoghue for ITV's Granada reports made me slightly anxious! But now the footage is out and half my extended family, friends and their pets tried contacting me via facebook, twitter and my phone while I was hiding with Becky in Frankie and Benny's, I've realised that we really did do pretty well going up...

ITV Granada Reports report of our Snowdon Assent!

Notice i used the word "assent."
Matt was really tired and took the train down which I think for filming purposes he must now regret it as coming down was fantastic!

For some strange reason my team
decided to test the strength of our
ropes by skipping, while i was
stranded with no front wheels at my
car!
I was most anxious about the dissent as I've always been able to and good at climbing up things...but not so confident or good at getting down again. Also, coming down would mean having to balance and keep myself from falling out over the handle bars...a fear I've always had, like most kids, since I learnt to ride a bike...but with no working stomach muscles, it would be even more challenging!

It was.
I fell out twice near the top but i wasn't scared...more excited and determined to get better at this technique that bizarrely felt like mountain biking.
And I got better.
And I got more confident.
A lot more confident!
The team work just flowed and I know from every day rolling that the key to landing down a kirb, or in this case boulder, is to get down equally. I also got very daring and used to the idea of "driving into the problem" with my rather large front wheel going for all the rocks while my two big wheels either side rolled passed them.
We picked up a lot of speed and I estimate we came down in around 2 hours!
I loved it.
I honestly feel that our greatest achievement was not just reaching the top, but the entire climb both  up and down; adapting, encouraging and laughing all the way with all our little individual goals we reached, some we may not have even realised yet, is what we truly achieved.
PLUS, WE RAISED OVER £2,200 FOR BACK UP, WITH ALL 9 TEAMS RAISING AN ESTIMATED £30K!
This sort of thing is fun to me, so I don't like to write any soppy crap.
That's why I'm proud of my team mates, most especially those who really broke out of their comfort zone and did this because, well you can't say no to me!
 A celebratory drink at the pub and onto the hog roast and beers. Had a laugh with friends old and new and went to bed happy and content knowing that we did it, after  alot of hard work raising money and planning, we did Snowdon!
 My amazing team! (friends first though!)

Finally though...who exactly is this onlooker trying to get on TV?
(ignore my face!)




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