A group of fitness fanatics have raised more than £2,000 for a Wigan hospital in honour of its MacMillan Palliative Care team, by covering more than three million metres of cardio activity in the month of January.
Led by Mike Reid, of Mike Reid Fitness in Hindley, the 25-member strong group set out to complete individual challenges of half-a-million metres in total.
But, together, they racked up a whopping 3,305,000 metres between them, taking part in running, cycling, rowing and spin bike exercises among others.
The challenge was devised by Mike and his friend Matthew Crompton at Christmas, set up to raise awareness and support of the work being carried out by Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals' Palliative Care team during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The team is staffed by Mike's hardworking wife, Hannah.
The Trust’s specialist Palliative Care service is part of the Northwest Cancer Services Network, with nurses like Hannah using their Macmillan knowledge so that each patient can attain the best quality of life possible.
Speaking about the fundraising effort and his reasons behind setting up the challenge, Mike said: “My wife Hannah, like so many others, has been working on the frontline throughout the pandemic, and it made me raise the question, 'what more can I do to help?'
“NHS staff and other key workers across the country are all heroes in my eyes, and I’ve seen the pressure and the physical and emotional challenge they go through first hand.
“It made me want to stand up and do something to give back to people like Hannah, and particularly to her colleagues and the team at WWL, so we set up this challenge to help raise awareness of their work and as a thank you for their efforts.”
Mike says he has been 'overwhelmed' by the efforts of those that joined him in the challenge, adding: "I’ve been overwhelmed with the effort from our members, what they achieved individually and as a group is absolutely outstanding and it’s given everyone an immense sense of pride to have completed the challenge in the name of the hardworking members of staff in our local NHS Trust.
“It was a gruelling challenge, with the goal of carrying out an exercise each day and multiplying the date by 1,000 each time, so for January 1 we did 1,000 metres; January 2 we did 2,000 metres and so on, with an additional 4,000 metres on our last day to make the total up to 500,000 each.
“We did all sorts of activities and I even did something extra myself called ‘Mike’s Miserable Mile’, mainly because of the weather, but it involved pulling a weighted sled whilst wearing a weight vest and holding an additional weight in each hand to complete a mile.
“In total we had five people complete the full half a million metres, myself, Matthew, Fraaz Mirza, Megan Woodcock and Andy Bennett, but all of our members deserve the credit and more so the NHS staff deserve it for inspiring us to get up and do something to contribute back to them.”
The funding page for Mike and the fitness fans can be found here.
