Mewburn Ellis showed steely determination to complete a 24-hour running challenge, raising £2,500 for East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH). Alice Jefferies, Fynn McLennan, Louise Atkins, Lucy White, Niles Beadman, Sean Constable, Simon Kiddle, Thea Toutoungy, and Tom Lonsdale laced up their shoes for the Endure24 ultra event, in Berkshire. The team relay involved running as many 8km loops of a challenging trail course as possible in 24 hours.
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The challenge got underway in sweltering conditions at 12pm on Saturday, 10th June and, between them, they completed 33 laps – the equivalent of 264km. They came 35th out of 753 competitors, including solo runners, pairs and teams, and won their category.
“Fortunately, one of our team members made a spreadsheet with everyone’s predicted lap times which helped us plan a running order and, more crucially, a sleep schedule,” said Alice Jefferies, who was joint-team captain with fellow Trainee Patent Attorney Louise Atkins. “We took it in turns to run one lap each during daylight hours. Overnight we had six team members run double laps to ensure everyone managed to get in the most sleep possible. From 5am on the Sunday, we were back to single laps and, thanks to everyone’s efforts, we managed to get one more lap in than we had predicted by the end of the 24 hours on the Sunday.”
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Initially a squad of 12, the team was reduced to nine due to injury and logistics and everyone ran between three and five laps over the 24 hours.
“I think across the board people found it harder than expected,” said Trainee Patent Attorney Fynn McLennan. “For me, the run was physically more demanding than I’d anticipated due to the high temperatures and physical fatigue associated with a lack of sleep. However, any mental challenge was firmly outweighed by the spirit of the whole weekend and I think everyone felt that way. It feels fantastic and doing that while completing a genuinely hard challenge made it that bit more special.”
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“We all felt a lot of pride to have worked so well as a team and raise money for EACH, which was chosen as our office charity for 2020-2022,” added Louise. “Every year we ask our colleagues to put forward charities they wish to support and every office votes for their local charity. EACH was the winner for the Cambridge office. We hope our donations allow parents and carers to recharge, safe in the knowledge their child is receiving expert care and attention. We’re incredibly grateful to each and every one that has supported us during the build up to the run and the run itself, including those that donated and helped make those midnight laps more bearable.”
Credit: Sportograf
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