Princess Alice Hospice supporter, Mikolaj Zieleznik, has just completed his three-part challenge, starting and ending in Chamonix, France, in a bid to raise £20,000 for the Esher based Hospice.
The challenge started with a run: 90km distance, 6km elevation in the Chamonix Ultra Marathon – through snow and sunshine. Mikolaj completed this run in 19 hours 36 minutes beating his 20 hours target! He had a well-deserved day off before setting off on a drive to Italy to climb the 4,000m Grand Paradiso peak. This is Italy’s highest independent peak and a very difficult event after running 90km!
After finishing on day 5 he then drove back to Chamonix for a rest day, in readiness for Challenge 3 on day 6/7 climbing Western Europe’s highest peak: 4,800m Mont Blanc. The mountain stands between the regions of Aosta Valley, Italy, and Savoie and Haute-Savoie, France.
However, the weather had other plans for Mikolaj and he was unable to complete this section of his challenge due to the severity of it. Not to be deterred he drove back to Italy, where he was met by some equally awful weather, but still was able to climb Piramide Vincent (4,215m) on Friday morning, having sat out the storm at Refuge di mantova (3,500m) before flying back to the UK on Friday afternoon in time for his daughter’s birthday.
Mikolaj’s decision to attempt this three-part challenge came when he learned how badly the local charity had been affected by the COVID pandemic with almost all events being cancelled during 2020. It costs £10.1m to run the Hospice for a year with 76% of the income coming from local supporters like Mikolaj.
Training for the events started in January before Mikolaj was sure how or when the lockdown was going to ease, but he knew he would be doing something big to support his local Hospice.
He said, “Local charities have suffered enormously over the past year and I felt the need to do something big to try and help. What the Hospice does in supporting those at the end of life and the help they give families and friends is priceless.”
If you’d like to take on a less daunting challenge you can visit the hospice website at https://www.pah.org.uk/how-you-can-help/events/find-an-event/
You can also check out the latest images of Mikolaj on his travels on his Just Giving page here – https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Mikolaj-Zieleznik1
Princess Alice Hospice: For Compassion. For Excellence. For People. For Living.
Princess Alice Hospice has, for more than 30 years, provided free, high-quality, specialist end of life care to tens of thousands of people across a large part of Surrey, south west London and Middlesex. Today, at any one time, Hospice nurses, doctors and other specialist staff are looking after more than 800 people in need. The Hospice’s mission is to reach out to even more people by delivering outstanding care to those that need it. To enable us to do this, we will rely on the commitment and support of our communities who help us to raise vital funds.
£10.1 million is needed each year to provide these vital and much-needed services. With limited NHS funding, 76% must be generated by fundraising, retail operations, donations and legacies.
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