2,020km Challenge for Alzheimer’s Society – May Report

2,020km Challenge

This year, I set myself a goal to reach 2,020km in 2020 by a combination of running and hiking to raise money for the Alzheimer’s Society (United Against Dementia). At the end of each month, I go through how I've progressed through the challenge and it gives us a chance to salivate over some stats 🤓

Even with the strictest coronavirus lockdown measures in the UK these last couple of months, we were thankfully still able to go out once per day to exercise which hasn’t hampered the ambition of the 2,020 km Challenge! Now the restrictions have eased a little, it means a I can go out more than once (although once is definitely enough)! So, the full definition of this challenge is thus:

• Total distance: 2,020 km / 1,255 miles in 2020
• Hiking: “cross-country” or “cross-terrain” walking
• Running: putting one leg in front of the other quickly
• Daily required distance: 5.52 km / 3.45 miles per day

So, let’s have a look at May’s progress!

May Progress

This has been one of the driest Mays on record in the UK which has given plenty of sunshine and longer evenings to make the most of the evenings after work! I've tried desperately to increase the distance of my runs but it has aggravated the shin injury a little bit, which has paved the way to do more hikes. With weather and views like this, it's been hard to resist the slightly longer exercise in the countryside in the evenings!

Views from parts in the Chilterns

In April's Report, I mentioned that I was beginning to "close the gap" between the distance I should have covered vs where I currently was. Well, May proved to be the month where I FINALLY managed to get myself back over where I needed to be! It has taken 4 and a half months of plodding away as I suffered setbacks in January and February with injury and illness.

In the graph below, the blue line is my current average daily distance and the red line is the required average daily distance to get to 2,020 km this year - take a look 😃

May Progress

After coming back from today's hike and eagerly checking my epic spreadsheet, I managed to get back above the red line right at the end of the month! Yeahhhhh buddies! 😃

Now I'm really hoping that I can push on in June and put myself in a strong position for the Summer months. Injury and illness are never too far away though, particularly given the current situation, so will just have to give myself some rest days to ensure I can stay fit to continue on.

Overall

I'm over the moon that I've managed to finally claw my way back over the red line and have definitely been hitting it a bit harder this month with fewer rest days and that has had a noticeable effect.

So let's have a look at some of the numbers! The table below shows the stats at a glance taken from the end of each month and the graph below shows the whole picture.

Month	Distance completed (%)	Should Be At (%)
January	138.78 km (6.9%)	171.09 km (8.5%)
February	298.99 km (14.8%)	331.14 km (16.4%)
March	473.82 km (23.5%)	502.23 km (24.9%)
April	644.88 km (31.92%)	667.80 km (33.06%)
May	841.38 km (41.65%)	838.89 km (41.53%)

As we can see, it's been a big battle to bridge the gap and when you think at the end of April, I was still 23 km behind, I was really surprised when I saw this chart at the end of May when I overtook the red line. So I had a look through to make sure every all the distances were typed in correctly and they were!

But how?! Well, the story begins to reveal itself when we breakdown the activity count and see where these extra distances have come from:

Month	Runs (%)	Hikes (%)	Active Days	Total Days
January	16 (73%)	6 (27%)	22	31
February	14 (70%)	6 (30%)	20	29
March	15 (68%)	7 (32%)	22	31
April	10 (45%)	12 (55%)	22	30
May	10 (39%)	16 (61%)	26	31
Total	65 (58%)	47 (42%)	112	152

Interesting to note that the number of runs has stayed the same but I added an additional 4 hikes this month vs April and so only actually had 5 rest days... which would explain the weariness in the legs! I think I might drop back down to 22 active days to give myself time to recover though now that I'm above the red line!

The table below also shows the distances that I've covered with the runs and hikes separately this month compared to others:

Month	Distance by Running (%)	Distance by Hiking (%)	Total Distance
January	86.54 km (62%)	52.24 km (38%)	138.78 km
February	84.14 km (53%)	76.06 km (47%)	160.20 km
March	93.15 km (53%)	81.68 km (47%)	174.83 km
April	67.14 km (39%)	103.92 km (61%)	171.06 km
May	69.3 km (35%)	127.2 km (65%)	196.5 km
Total	400.27 km (48%)	441.10 km (52%)	841.38 km

So THAT'S where the additional distance came in! The additional 4 hikes seemed to add another 20 km or so in which gave the thrust needed to go over the red line! Hiking distance is now a little more than the runs but still roughly 50/50, which is fine with me! Hurray! 😃

Charity Fundraising

I’m aiming to raise as much as I can for the Alzheimer’s Society, which is dedicated to researching, supporting and caring for families affected by dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease.

This is a debilitating condition that slowly erodes the brain, affecting memory, awareness, personality and ability to communicate. Simply put, it’s horrible for both the patient and family and my Nana suffered from it in her final years so the motivation for me is as strong as it has been to do this challenge.

This month, I received an amazing boost in the amount raised thanks to the efforts from my friends that follow me on the Hive social media site. They contributed an awesome £85, which I matched and we're now at 10% of the target of £2,020!

I have set up a Just Giving page here where you can donate and the money goes straight to the charity. I’ll also donate half the post payouts from whatever this report gets as well! Thank you to everyone who’s supported this and let’s get to that target of £2,020 together hey!

If you have Strava, feel free to encourage or banter with me on there – here’s a link to my profile!

Until next month's report, take it easy and catch you soon!

Nicky

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Original article on my website