A group of friends who completed 2016’s Race The Sun Brecon Beacons challenge, raising over £5,000 for Action Medical Research, announced their return to Lycra and are committing to undertake a mega hat-trick in 2017 by completing a Race The Sun triple challenge.
Oakland International will be covering team costs for all three, one-day Race The Sun challenges, with a fundraising target of £2,000 for each challenge.
Brecon Beacons – Saturday 24th June 2017
Isle of Wight – Saturday 8th July 2017
Lake District – Saturday 2nd September 2017
Their first Race The Sun in the Brecon Beacons will begin at sunrise on Saturday 24th June and involve cycling 45 miles, climbing Pen y Fan at a height of 2,907ft and finally canoeing 3km across Pontsticill Reservoir to finish at sunset.
Team Wrong Direction members include Team Captain Christian Shuker of Central IT Systems, Oakland International’s Dean Attwell and Cory Winstanley and Stuart Starkey of Starkey Electrical.
Team Captain Christian Shuker explained the team’s motivation: “Team Wrong Direction was the top fundraiser at last year’s Brecon Beacons Race The Sun challenge, so we felt it was necessary to raise the stakes in 2017, and if we don’t beat our 2016 finishing time on the Brecon Beacon leg then we’ll perform a One Direction song at the finish line!
“To be serious, this year’s triple challenge is so much more than a fundraising campaign, although we do want to raise as much as we can between now and our last challenge in September, it’s also about raising awareness of the work of Action Medical Research and encouraging participation in their events and getting other businesses to get involved.”
For 65 years Action Medical Research has been saving and changing children’s lives and has spent more than £115 million funding medical breakthroughs, including helping to introduce the first polio vaccines in the UK, discovering the importance of taking folic acid before and during pregnancy to prevent spina bifida, developing the use of ultrasound in pregnancy and testing the rubella vaccine.
The team of all dads all on the wrong side of forty, Christian added: “Three challenges, taking a day each to complete and involving loads of cycling, kayaking and climbing, we’ll certainly get fit!”
The charity is currently funding research into conditions including prematurity, epilepsy, meningitis, cerebral palsy, brain cancer and some rare and distressing conditions.
For more information on Action Medical Research please visit action.org.uk