The work carried out to maintain relationships between prisoners and their families in the Time for Families workshops was impressive and had clearly benefited those who had participated in this scheme.
Grim victory for TfF
3 brave runners take on the Grim Challenge
On 15th Jan 2011, Simon, Nick and Tim took on the Grim Challenge to raise money for Time for Families. 8 miles of mud, water, hills and more mud!!! It was a fantastic day, with the boys raising £1000 to support our work.
Simon's thoughts:
The big mistake was running through puddles - and by puddles I mean large bodies of water 20 to 100m long with large tank ruts. On the first puddle, Tim lost his shoe, and at the second Nick hit a pothole and was over. But after those mishaps we got into our stride and plodded, or sloshed, along. Coming out of the puddles gave you numb feet (and other bits, depending on how deep they were), but they soon warmed up, just in time for the next one.
There were a couple of very sharp little hills, but the real nasty was an extremely deep, clayey rut covered by a camouflage net. I (Simon) was up to my tummy. But, after that, it was more of a slog. The 7 mile sign seemed a long way from the 6. From then on, we could hear the loud speaker cheering in each person, but the voice never seemed to get closer. Then, suddenly, after a bit of a slither down some clay, the line was in sight, but we had to loop round a field, go through a final puddle (mainly to please the crowds who seemed to enjoy the suffering) and then over the finish.
The finishing times were:
Simon - 1hr 36mins
Nick - 1hr 38mins
Tim -1hr 43mins
Thanks to everyone who supported us - It really does make a difference.
Would you like to raise money for TfF?
There are loads of sponsored runs, swims, triathlons and plenty of other crazy things you could do to raise money for TfF. If you would like some ideas contact Tim Powell for details of how you could get involved: tim.powell@timeforfamilies.org.uk