London Royal Parks 50k challenge

What an amazing day! It was such a challenge but team Footprints were fantastic and all finished with a smile.

We arrived at Bushy Park to a beautiful sunrise and a mist that made the park look encapsulating. We set off at 7am past the lake to find a deer in the lake. Less than 100 metres and we were already stopping to take photos!

There were other groups of fundraisers on the challenge, including Children’s Air Ambulance, Alzheimer’s UK, a children’s reading project and Marie Curie. It was lovely to chat to different people and to hear about their experiences. 

We walked for an hour or so before reaching Richmond park, which was my favourite part of the whole walk. We met other walkers, runners and cyclists along the route. Our first stop was just before leaving Richmond park, a 20 minute pit stop to refuel and use the toilets. We were all feeling great!

Our next destination was Brompton Cemetery which I have never been to. It felt quite a way before we reached it, going across Putney Bridge along the way. It was so nice chatting to everyone from our team and seeing those that didn’t know each other chatting too. We chatted about our babies and our journey as a charity en route. 

Brompton Cemetery was much bigger than I had expected and an interesting place to visit. We walked past Emmeline Pankhurst’s grave. After leaving the cemetery we had a snack stop before heading to Kensington Gardens. We were told this would be half way and our lunch stop, and that we were ahead of time! 

We found Dominic, my husband, waiting for us as we arrived at Kensington and he joined us for lunch, photos and the next part of the walk. This was our longest stop and near to the Diana Memorial and Serpentine. 

The next part of the trek was where we covered lots of the parks and landmarks in quick succession – Hyde park, Green park, Buckingham Palace, St James’ park, Admiralty Arch, Westminster Abbey, Westminster and Victoria Tower Gardens, Big Ben and Houses of Parliament! Lots to look at and lots of photo opportunities. Dominic left us at Big Ben as we began our trek to Regent’s Park. This was an incredibly busy section right through the city, taking in sights such as Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Street to name a few.

We had a short stop at Regent’s Park where we heard about the fire at Somerset house so it was a slight detour back to St Paul’s and across Millennium bridge. A few supporters were waiting for us here which was a real help as we were really feeling it by now! They joined us as we walked along Southbank by the river until they left us at London Bridge to get the bus to Greenwich. 

We were all finding it a challenge by now, trying to keep up the pace but finding that hard. A few people from other challenges had finished the walk early but our team were still going strong! The messages and donations really spurred us on and the thought that we were doing it for all of our babies and to help the charity. 

For me, but also for the others, this next part was the most difficult. It seemed to take forever to get anywhere near Greenwich and when I thought we were getting close one of the leaders said “We have a good hour to go.” We all had slightly different distances on our watches so we weren’t quite sure how far was left. We talked about it being one parkrun to go (5k). Conversations were lacking by now, just a lot of sighing and  mentions of aching legs!

We finally passed a sign post that said we were 0.5 miles from the Cutty Sark which was a welcome sight. We picked up pace a bit and had a new found freshness in our legs. We turned the corner to find another corner, but then we could see the Cutty Sark. What an amazing sight! We were greeted again by two of our husbands, who joined us on the last stretch UP to Greenwich park. We entered through the gate and were told we had accomplished the challenge in under 12 hours. We were given our medals and had some finish line photos at the gate. Thank you to Charity Challenge for leading the trek and giving us some great memories. 

Our fundraising total was almost at £4000 by now, we were all so pleased to have finished and so grateful for all the messages and donations. 

I am truly grateful for every member of our team, Sarah who walked in memory of her twins Carter and Sydney, Vikki who walked in memory of her baby twin girls and her six little stars, Sam who walked in memory of Jacob and George, and my three friends Ellen, Rose and Clare who are so supportive and kind to do this for me and for the charity. I am also really appreciative of everyone who sent messages, commented on the social media posts and sent donations, as well as to Dominic, my amazing husband, who supported us in so many ways, including driving us home when we were all a bit broken!

I love doing challenges in memory of my twins Charlie and Joshua, and I am really proud of us all. 25k for each of them for their 25th birthday.

A few comments from the team…

“Great to be part of Team Footprints and take part in the 10 parks challenge. It definitely was a challenge, but raising money for Footprints encouraged me on. So glad I did it.” Clare

“Had a fab day today and feel very privileged to be take part in an event raising money for a great cause.” Rose

“It was an honour and privilege to walk with you all today!” Ellen

“It was an honour to do this challenge with 6 amazing ladies. I’m so proud to be a part of this charity. It was a hard challenge this year but the support and money raised made it all worth it ” Vikki