A little time has now passed since our intrepid Vanessa Ogden and Josh Clamp completed the Yorkshire Three Peaks challenge in for the Serenity Appeal which hopes to increase the level of care in maternity bereavement at Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospital's. Here we find out how they found completing the massive 24mile hike in just 12 hours!
Vanessa said: "Where do I start?! This was literally the hardest challenge I’ve ever done, and I've done quite a lot of them over the years!
“The day was great, albeit tiring, and the feet situation was hard going at times! Just 10 mile in and mine were being strapped up and I was agony. But the atmosphere was amazing, as there were lots of charities all doing the walk with hundreds of people taking part so you just chatted away with others that you never met before which was great. It really helped push you on.
“If I had to describe the challenge in three words, I would say NUTS as you have got to be nuts to do it in the first place. DETERMINED as I easily could have quit at 10 mile checkpoint and GRATEFUL to know that although it was tough, many people would love to do this and unfortunately can't.
“Despite not being able to walk the next day, everything hurting and having five of my toenails still black, it was a fantastic experience and to do it for such a good cause is what it was all about. So far I've raised £200 but donations are coming in.
“I would advise anyone preparing to do it in the future to make sure they train for it and that they train in the shoes/boots you are going to tackle it in.”
Josh added: “I’d never done anything like this before and I did this walk with no training which might not have been too sensible in hindsight! But physically the walk wasn't actually too bad for me, apart from it being a little tough on the knees. It is more of a mental and psychological battle to keep going when it gets tough.
“I particularly enjoyed the pub halfway round and chatting to all the people who also took part. I’d definitely advise anyone doing this challenge to not do it in new walking boots like I did though!”