A Hursty Adventure! (How Hard Can It Be?): May 2016

Sunday 15 May 2016

Inaugural RNLI #ThreeShires Cycle Sportive! £5,600 rasied for RNLI :-)

I started thinking about organising an RNLI Cycle Sportive in August 2015 and after going along to the Abersoch RNLI Sportive in September of that year to chat to them about the viability of such an event got swept along into organising my first event! The #ThreeShires Cycle sportive! How hard could it be!?

Three routes on offer to encourage and accommodate cyclists of all ages and abilities.

100km Three Shires route, taking in the quite country lanes of Cheshire, Shropshire & Staffordshire
35km Three Shires Event intermediate Route
6km Family Fun route

It was a lot of work, but the adage 'many hands make light work' has never been truer! It really couldn't have been done without the help of so many people and at the risk of missing a few here goes!

Rod, Phil & John and the team from Crewe Nantwich & South Cheshire RNLI for the massive organisational help, route planning and risk assessments, route signage and Marshalling on the day
Sophie and the team at RNLI Head Office
Simon, Steph, Peter, Pete, Russ, Rich & Dominic and the team from Sandbach Cycling Group for creating and test riding the routes and helping with the route marking and on the day event
Rob, John, Symphony Bistro and the team from Sandbach Rugby Club for their support and use of their fantastic venue and catering
Yvonne and the staff of Waitrose Sandbach for their in-store support
Barrie and Gary of http://bikemarshals.co.uk/ for the event Motorcycle Marshall and medical support
Overwater Marina and Alsager Leisure Centre for the use of their facilities as Pit stops (and the Alsager RNLI guild for staffing the Alsager pitstop)
Our Pro Cyclist support for the event from Kristian House of ONE Pro Cycling
And last but not least, our 35 volunteer Marshalls on the day for making the event such a success
and of course... The participant riders!

The weather on the day was fantastic and the Marshalls seamlessly filled any of our planning gaps to make it look like we'd been running the event for years!

We had over 330 participant's over our three routes which was more than we actually thought would be possible in our first year! Everyone made it home without injury which was a huge relief!

If you have a few more minutes to spare, you can watch the photo, video montage put together by my daughter Lucie here ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDNMtRvdQEw

Why Am I Doing This!?

I got drawn in to running in 2007 to raise funds for charity and after years of just weight training in a gym discovered it's a great way to keep in shape!

I expanded the fundraising and range of sporting interests to open water swimming in 2010 and loved that too which lead to taking up cycling and Triathlon's in 2011!

This has evolved into a range of Endurance and adventure challenges through which I've continued to push my boundaries and learned a lot about myself and others in the process!

I'm now quite into Ultra Running which I love for the peace and tranquillity along with anything other challenges a bit out of the ordinary!
I've kept a training blog for the past few years and decided to consolidate the records of the challenges I've completed so far here in this Blog.
I find that if I have an event to train for it's just the motivation I need to get off my butt and get out!
I generally try and fund raise for a number of charities but primarily these days for the RNLI.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution ~ http://www.rnli.org/

In September 2007 I had an accident whilst sailing my Laser Pico dinghy out at sea off Abersoch, North Wales. The Abersoch crew came to my aid and I'll be eternally grateful. I did an interview about the mishap for the RNLI which you can catch here
~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk6edftmHtg

I spend a lot of time out at sea with family and friends and it made me realise just how dependent we are on this life saving volunteer emergency service funded entirely by charity.
After undergoing three operations to stitch me up and put my nose back in the middle of my face I vowed to keep on raising money for the RNLI by taking on sponsored challenges for as long as folk would continue to support me… So far, including the Sportives, fun runs and group challenges I've organised this has raised just over £61,000 for the RNLI but it’s not over yet!

In 2008 & 2009 I ran the Great North Run Half Marathon to raise funds for the Abersoch RNLI station.

In 2010 I taught myself to swim front crawl and swam a mile in open water at The Great Salford Swim and in

2011 rolled it all up by taking on the Tatton Triathlon Olympic Distance.
In 2012 with my good friend Dom I extended the cycling by riding Coast to Coast from Morcambe to Bridlington along the 'Way of the Roses' route ~ http://www.wayoftheroses.co.uk/.
A 184mile ride over 3 days and also organised a team triathlon challenge at work.
In 2013 I organised another Triathlon Team Relay at the company I work for, Findel to raise funds.
In 2014 in an effort to try and make the challenges bigger and more ambitious, took on the #3PeaksByBike with another two friends from work Dave and Paul... Climbing Snowdon, Scafel Pike and Ben Nevis and cycling the 450miles between them over 4.5 days!
It's a slippery slidey slope!

In 2015 I took on two Endurance challenges to raise funds for the RNLI...
~ #BikesBoatsBoots ~ With the team that undertook the 2014 #3PeaksByBike, taking on a self organised 170mile coast to coast trek across Scotland from 4th to 8th June, cycling, canoeing and hiking from Oban to Loch Ness Lifeboat Station.
~ Long Course Weekend ~ A 2.4mile Sea Swim, 112mile bike ride and a 26.2mile marathon run from 3rd to 5th July in Pembroke, Wales.
In 2016 I organised my first Cycle Sportive with friends from Sandbach Sunday Cyclists, Sandbach Rugby Club and the Crewe, Nantwich & South Cheshire RNLI! It was a great event and day out and really well supported! So much so that it's now become an annual event and now has four such outings under it's belt!

The #ThreeShires heads out from Sandbach on 5 routes:-
- 100km: Cheshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire loop

- 85km Cheshire & Staffordshire loop
- 37km: Intermediate Cheshire loop
- 6km Family fun ride!
- The Triple Crown Challenge (The 100km, 37km and 5km routes back to back)
- Find out more and enter here ~ http://www.rnli.org.uk/ThreeShires
- View highlights from the 2016 inaugural event here ~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDNMtRvdQEw

2016 also saw me take on my first Ironman Triathlon in Weymouth! A fantastic day out covering the 2.4m swim, 112m bike and 26m marathon run in 14hours 53 mins and more much needed money raised for the RNLI :-)
2017 saw me taking on the 50 mile Chester Ultra Marathon with my adventure challenge buddy Dave McDonald.

2018 saw me taking a break other than the ThreeShires sportive organisation.

2019 I upped the anti again taking on a 'Welsh Triple Challenge'. This included:

~ The very unique Bardsey Island Marathon (only 10 invited runners a year for six laps of Bardsey Island),

~ The Pen Llyn Summer 50 mile Ultra Marathon

~ and the Abersoch ROC Triathlon... My first Triathlon since the Ironman in 2016. The Abersoch ROC included a 1.5km Sea swin, 31 mile bike to Snowdon, a run up and down Snowdon and then a bike ride bike for a final 1km run on the beach! Again another fantastically unique event.

2019 also saw me help organise the first RNLI Porthdillaen Family Fun Run with my wife Karen and friends Mali and Owain from the Porthdinllaen lifeboat... Hopefully this too will become an annual event :-)

As for 2020? Well we shall see what we shall see :-)...

Welcome to the 'Challenge Hursty' Blog!

Sunday 15 May 2016

Inaugural RNLI #ThreeShires Cycle Sportive! £5,600 rasied for RNLI :-)