Rich's 500 Mile Walk - Aberdeen to London - for Alzheimers Reaseach UK

08/10/2022

Hi all

I’ve left a bit of time before making my final post, to allow any last few donations to come through. I’m now in a position to announce that my employer has added £3,700 to the £6,463 raised by all you wonderful people through the Just Giving page. This means that in total we have raised an incredible £1️⃣0️⃣1️⃣6️⃣3️⃣ for Alzheimer's Research UK 👏👏👏

Thank you one final time to everyone who supported through donations, or messages of support. An extra special thank you to those who met up with me and kept me company at different points, and to those involved in the fantastic reception I received in Sunbury at the ‘finish line’. No thanks to for giving me food poisoning (confirmed by pathology as E-coli) in Nuneaton, and doing absolutely nothing about the complaint I submitted.

The horrific blisters were all worth it, and 4 weeks is the quickest I will ever wear out a brand new pair of trainers. I did manage to shed a few pounds, although don’t know how much of this was the walking, and how much was the food poisoning.

This is the last you will hear from me on this matter, I’ve been going on about this since January which is plenty long enough. If anyone feels like challenging themselves in a similar way, I actually highly recommend it, and would be only too happy to provide any advice and share my experiences.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Walk500Miles2022

04/08/2022

FINAL DAY - The End! 🥳
Miles - 39.8 (for some reason)
Steps - 100,000

Well my nearly 16 hour shift has finally finished! Leaving at 6:30am, I walked almost continuously until nearly 10:30pm. Total distance covered was just over 40 miles (not sure why the video app came up a little short).

I travelled into London via Brentford and Shepherds Bush. Through Regents Park, and then followed the canal round from Camden to Angel. Over Tower Bridge, and back out of London via 🐘&🏰, Vauxhall and Battersea. The final stretch was through Putney, Richmond and Twickenham, with a finish line at Homebase in Hanworth 😄 Thanks to Anita for picking me up this evening! 🚗

I saw lots of things, but was pretty 'in the zone' today and didn't take many pictures. Best of all though, I did have a few people turn up to meet me at different points which was really nice 🥰

Shout out to Nic & Natasha Lloyd for walking with me from Angel to Tower Bridge, my Dad for walking with me from 🐘&🏰 to Putney, and Jaime and Vikki for meeting me at Richmond Bridge (thanks also for the much needed paracetamol!).

This was all during the 2nd half of the day, when things were getting really tough. I am so lucky to have such supportive friends and family ❤️

I'll send out a summary of the whole 500 mile journey maybe over the weekend. For now I just need to sleep 😴

04/08/2022

Okay, so getting to Dartford early doors has proved more hassle than it's worth, so I've decided to do more of a carbon neutral loop through central London. Should still be a pretty scenic route through some fun places though, sadly the forecast is ☀️☀️☀️

From home, I'm heading through the following places over the course of the day (and probably evening). 40 miles is still the target!

Hounslow
Brentford
Shepherds Bush
Camden
Angel
Shoreditch
Tower Bridge
Elephant & Castle
Clapham
Putney
Kingston

You can track my real-time progess via the link below 👇

https://locatoweb.com/map/single/0537269846

03/08/2022

Hi all

Sorry I’ve been a bit quiet of late. With the best of intentions, I’ve found it very hard to find 3 or 4 hours in the evenings to complete the 500 miles that I originally set out to do. A combination of work, family, other commitments, and insanely hot weather have conspired against me somewhat. Walking was certainly a lot easier when I was away on my own with nothing else to worry about!

Therefore, I have decided that I owe you all one final mega-walk, and tomorrow morning I will set off from Dartford at 6am, and aim to cross the whole of London from one side of the M25 to the other. This is going to be something in the region of 40 miles in a day, which will get me over the 500 mile mark and I can then retire from walking forever.

I’ll send out the real-time tracker link in the morning, for anyone that’s interested in following my slow progress. Fingers crossed for cooler weather tomorrow!

15/07/2022

15/07/2022

Day 2️⃣8️⃣ - Evening Stroll
Miles - 15.9
Steps - 39,000

Another local one last night. As much as I enjoyed discovering new places over the last 4 weeks, I realised yesterday that I probably under appreciate some of the nice areas that are well within walking distance of home.

I headed to Walton-on-Thames via Charlton Village. Grabbed a cheeky Nando's wrap as a takeaway meal on the go, and then came back via Weybridge, Shepperton and Laleham.

There was no time yo stop for a pint unfortunately, so I'll have to save that for the weekend 😉

Last nights efforts have taken me up to a total of 461 miles walked since the start of the challenge on June 11th!

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Walk500Miles2022

13/07/2022

13/07/2022

Day 2️⃣7️⃣ - Round Trip to Staines
Miles - 12.5
Steps - 30,000

After a few days break, it was back to it again this evening (once it had cooled down a little).

Thanks a lot to Vicky Holly for joining me. Was nice heading down to the river, and we even had time for a cheeky pint in The Swan! 🍺

12.5 miles completed this evening, which takes me up to 445 miles walked since I started the challenge.

Hopefully time to do another decent amount tomorrow night, although this might well take a few days. Now I'm back in the real world, I have to fit this I'm around my real life! 👟👟

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Walk500Miles2022

07/07/2022

07/07/2022

Day 2️⃣6️⃣ - Slough to Sunbury
Miles - 12.1
Steps - 28,000

So on what was meant to be my final day of walking, I completed something close to the original walking plan for day 26.

Long gone are the rolling hills and scenery of the Peak District. As I returned home, the familer sights were that of the M25 and Heathrow Airport! 😄

With the finish line event at our Sunbury office being planned some time ago, it wasn't really possible to move this at short notice. This left me feeling somewhat awkward, arriving there today having only completed 432 miles so far 😕

That said, the welcome I received was both excellent and overwhelming, and I really want to thank those friends and colleagues involved for making such a big effort 💚

Whilst this was no longer the finishing point in terms of miles, what it did mean (and this is cause for celebration), was that I am finally home. This brings to a close nearly 4 weeks away on my own in Travelodge's 🥳

Having lost 3 valuable walking days this week may have scuppered the original 500 miles in 26 days plan, but I have now set myself the challenge of completing the remaining 68 miles, buy the end of next week.

This is somewhat tricky for me personally due to stag do commitments this weekend, and work commitments next week, but I think this is doable.

For a little bit longer, the journey continues...

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Walk500Miles2022

05/07/2022

Rubbish video, but proof that I did it! 👟👟

05/07/2022

Day 2️⃣5️⃣ - Getting Back into the Groove
Miles - 10.9
Steps - 26,000

So I desperately want to get back to walking, and finish this 500 miles as soon as possible. Although the worst of my symptoms have eased, I'm still really drained of energy, and a journey too far from the toilet is a bit of risk right now!

For this reason I decided to stick pretty close to base, and see what I could physically do this afternoon. Whilst todays walk was easily the most boring one I've done so far (and doesn't make for a very exciting animated map), I'm pretty happy with an easy-paced 11 miles under the circumstances. It all contributes towards the total! 🧮

It sounds like a huge amount of effort has gone into the pre-planned 'finish line' scheduled for tomorrow, so we can't postpone that. I'm pretty embarrassed that I haven't acheived what I set out to do within the proposed timescale, but 420 miles so far, and over 1 million steps isn't too bad I suppose when I have lost the best part of 3 days this week.

There will just have to be a disclaimer at the bottom that I have some miles to finish next week, which of course I will keep you all up to date with 😊

Thanks everyone once again for all your messages of support and encouragement. I'm genuinely humbled by the level of engagement and support I've had with all of this.

What started out as a silly little idea, which I thought might raise a couple of quid from friends and family, has turned into something absolutely huge ❤️

Anyone wishing to pop down to Sunbury tomorrow is more than welcome. I anticipate crossing the 'finish' line between 12:30-13:30, but I'll re-activate the real-time tracker so you can follow this.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Walk500Miles2022