Watford Wanderers take to the downs (From Watford Observer)

Watford Wanderers take to the downs

2:34pm Tuesday 7th July 2009 in Charity Check

Watford Wanderers, a team of two fathers and their sons from Watford are taking on the OXFAM trailwalker challenge.

In an effort to raise £2,000 for OXFAM and the Gurka Welfare Trust, Stuart and Andrew Sidders and Jim and Tomas Fitzpatrick are joining 503 other teams to complete a 100km walk (approximately 62 miles) over the South Downs on the weekend of July 18 and 19.

The rules state that they must complete the walk in less than 30 hours and all four members of the team must cross the finish line together in order to qualify.

All four have been training hard over the last 15 weeks running and walking mainly in order to build up their endurance and fitness to meet the challenge. To complete the trail the team will need to walk continually, stopping only occasionally for 10 – 15 minutes to take on food and water or a change of clothes. They will be walking through the night and are hoping to complete the course in less than 20 hours.

The walk starts at Queen Elizabeth Country Park, in Hampshire and finishes at Brighton racecourse. The Gurkas man all the checkpoints on route and provide additional support providing food at the start and during the event.

Stuart, who teaches maths has been able to raise over £500 to the total so far from students visiting his maths website and making donations from watching his maths revision videos in the lead up to the May/June exams.

If you would like to sponsor the team and help them reach their goal of £2,000. then you can go online at http://www.justgiving.com/watford-wanderers where you can also keep up to date with their progress.