Training for Two

Why not? The blurb for the 2013 Cancer Council NSW Seven Bridges Walk said “The seven iconic bridges around Sydney Harbour and the walkways in between provide many spectacular views of the world’s most beautiful waterways”.  And indeed they do but Sal Hawthorne and I were too busy chatting for 5 hours straight.

Apart from this photo showing Anzac Bridge in the background, we hardly noticed the scenery. This will definitely not be the case when we do The big UK walk. But for now we wanted to see if we could motor along at a cracking pace – tick  – 5.4km an hour wasn’t bad considering we got caught behind some awful bottlenecks but the knees did begin to give way after the 4 hour mark – right knees and hips started to buckle a bit but we kept laughing and smiling and, besides telling you now, we think we got away with it. What a relief – we still have it sort of.

Note our new red Kiss Goodbye to MS hats. They looked great and our sincere apologies to the Cancer Council for flagrantly flaunting them but we are on a mission for MS at the moment. Thank you Cancer Council for allowing us to do the walk as part of our training.  Well we’re now showered and rested and 25kms better trained. If you can’t join us please keep up your individual training. One of our next challenges will be to do this distance again on consecutive days. But all in good time. Still 10 months to go. As the proverb goes “Rome was not built in a day”.

 

 

 

Seven Wonders do Chatswood to Epping

Another great training day filled with laughs, the odd scream when a snake crossed our path, plenty of frustrating map reading, a professional photo shoot and much chatter about all our forthcoming plans. A wee bit of rain when we reached Lane Cove National Park saw us take cover at their attractive toilet block and just for a brief moment contemplate turning around and heading back to the shops for a nice latte and some retail therapy but fortunately we decided to soldier on. The sun broke through and we had a pleasant shaded walk  under De Burgh’s bridge and the M2 before arriving on Epping Road for a steep little last ascent to Epping Railway Station.

From Left Merran, Bron, Denise, Katrina, Sally, Liz and Debbie

What a contingent of determined women prepared to now travel over 17,000 kms to walk one of the best long distance walks in the world – for us Wainwright’s Coast2Coast MS Walk.

But there’s more. At very short notice and without the ability to attend this training walk we now have an 8th member. Tansey Keys. Thanks to Merran’s fantastic sell on what a great bunch of women we are Tansey will now be joining us too. Welcome Tansey! to the Effervescent Eight  – a group that has the ability to show high spirits of animation or alternatively have the potential to bubble up. No doubt  drinking some bubbly at the beginning, throughout and at the end to celebrate our great achievement will be high on our list of must dos.

And walking towards a world free from MS,of course. Come on, go the extra mile, join us or donate to our fundraising pages and help us Kiss Goodbye to MS.

Seven wonders of the modern world

Wondering what all the excitement is about? Wondering why there is so much interest? Well you can’t knock back an opportunity to walk with 6 other dynamic personalities and not claim some of the accolades yourself.

(Back Row: 3rd from Left Merran, Katrina, Bron  Front Row: From Left Debbie, Liz, Denise, Sally)

Yes, our designated trainer for this event, the inimitable Sally Hawthorne, has taken the plunge and committed to walk the whole way with us as well.  Is she raving mad? Perhaps, but adding one more Ravo girl to the pack is a very welcome addition. Together with our honorary Ravenswood girls, Debbie and Liz, we now have a full complement of talented and motivated walkers who are going to give it their all to raise the necessary funds to make a difference to all those 2 million plus people in the world currently living with MS.

Our other recent addition, Denise Temisgian, and Sally walked many days with us when we did the Mudgee2Sydney MS Walk in September 2010 but neither walked the whole way. This is a considerable step up for both of them and their participation in this walk now eclipses the number of participants that walked the whole way in our previous walk.

Why are we wonders? Well would you travel over 10,870 miles (17,500 kms), be prepared to then suffer a bit of jet lag, pay your own way, run the risk of blisters, sore feet, aching limbs and inevitably some rain sodden trekking days all in the aid of a disease that only one of us has and only one of us has the pleasure of living with. Absolutely! Helping people like Deb and Mike “doing it for themselves” with the support of family and friends like us is what makes it all worthwhile. And successfully walking one of the ultimate long distance walks in the world from one side of Britain to the other is an experience we will never forget.

As many of the girls write in their personal profiles, it is only through getting to know people with MS that one fully comes to grip with the difficulties and complications this disease places on their ability to lead a “normal” life. Despite these difficulties Deb and Mike never complain. They just continually readjust their lives to a new level of capability. Regrettably, because of the progressive nature of this disease, their today will always be better than their tomorrow.

If you are unable to join us on this adventure please donate to our individual fundraising pages or our team page on the Kiss Goodbye to MS website http://www.kissgoodbyetoms.org/fundraisers/teams/wainwright%E2%80%99s-coast2coast-ms-walk We are determined to raise over A$150,000 to find a cure for MS but we need your help. Thank you for your support.

Once again, welcome aboard Sally Hawthorne!  Yeh Team Wainwright!!

Old Ravenswood Girls vs the new breed  -from left Sally, Denise, Katrina, Bron and Merran

Sexy Six

Sexy six – nuh… maybe 30 years ago.

Senile six – nuh… gives us a few more years

Silly six – definitely, prepared to travel for 30+ hrs at our own expense just to have a good walk when we probably could have done in our own backyard

Serious six – that too, particularly about fundraising for a cure for MS but I like

Sensational six. Welcome to our new “all-the-way” committed member of this elite walking group – Denise Temisgian.

It’s wonderful to have another Ravenswood Old Girl join us for this exciting adventure. And if you’re not a Ravo girl Denise is happy to bestow you with an honorary status, as she did with Debbie when we did the 2010 Mudgee2Sydney MS Walk, if you can demonstrate a can do attitude and tenacity in the face of any adversity life throws at you. Deb’s wearing our old summer uniform from 1978. And yes, we did wear white gloves to and from school, summer and winter.

You are more than welcome to join us for this ultimate long distance walk should you be contemplating a trip to the UK. Read our blog for all the details.

Welcome aboard Denise!

The adventure starts now!

We’re making good progress in our early preparations for the Coast-to-Coast MS Walk. We’ve got the key team members from the Mudgee to Sydney (M2S)  Walk for MS Research  in 2010 back together, which is fantastic. They are experienced walkers, having previously walked 270km in 11 days, and great fun people. We’ve got our logo developed and agreed and we’re working closely with the Kiss Goodbye To MS team in Australia and the Multiple Sclerosis Society  in the UK.

Katrina has prepared a detailed description of each day’s walk which can be found right here on the blog.

And here is a shot of the core M2S team: Liz, Katrina and Mike.

Keep coming back to the blog because as we progress, as the walkers get into their training, as we find sponsors, all the news will be right here.