£10k - we did it! THANK YOU!

We've all been a little giddy over the last few days as it's slowly sunk in that we are actually going to Borneo in about 24 hours time :-D

You've helped us beat our target of raising £10,000 and I just wanted to say a massive thank you to every single one of you who has supported us.

Not everyone gets truly life-changing moments (or at least good ones), but this money is going to help create just a few more of them, for individuals who need it the most. Young people from disadvantaged backgrounds will be changed in powerful, positive ways by what they get out of (and put into) Raleigh. That is what we've achieved together, and I think it's an amazing thing!

I'll warn you now, I'm about to go into full "Oscar acceptance speech" mode, but I just need to thank everyone...

(feel free to just skip to your name)

Starting at home, first of all thank you Mum, Dad and Kate - especially for telling everyone about the challenge, and Sadie for being an excellent snow-training assistant. Thanks also to Sheila & Ed and Claire & Brian.

Everyone on the BTC (or ex-BTC): thanks for putting up with our hundreds of e-mails about everything we were doing, and thanks Dave, Will, Shruti, Rich B, Kevin, Henry, Rob, Richard M, Sham, Leon and Laura for your donations.

A special thanks to Jon Mills for giving me the flexibility at work to fit fundraising around my schedule, your great enthusiasm for the more gambling-esque fundraisers and the best bonus I could have received (thanks Gordon Walker, Bob Scott and Greg Hyttenrauch for your parts in that). Thanks also Mark Benton, Judy Kenward and everyone else in Croydon who donated or bought raffle tickets and/or brownies.

Thanks Murray, Tariq, Flor, Declan, Niall, James, Laura, Holly and Julia for your donations to the cause. Thanks Roz for disobeying your rule, and Juliane for pushing it over the £10k!

Thanks Femma for all the re-tweets and re-yams... and anyone else who tweeted / liked messages about our cause.

Drew & Lina - sí, hay helado! :-)

Andreas - thanks for previous jungle adventures, and the tropical fruit-based powdered drinks to get me into the mood!

Thank you to my flatmates Patrick, Charlie, Thom and Susie for encouraging some of the more unconventional fundraising ideas, and putting up with at least six months of me talking of nothing else.

Thank you Aleja for believing in my dream to see monkeys in the wild and making sure I took all my vaccinations ;-)

And thank you to everyone who unleashed their energies on the Treasure Hunts and Sports Day, shouted at the TV at the Race Nights, bought cakes, took part in the Wimbledon Raffle, ran and raised money in the JP Morgan race (especially Assad), or participated in anything else we did!

Of course thanks Dan Maggs, Debra Hay and everyone at Raleigh and BMF for supporting our fundraising and setting up this crazy adventure we're about to embark on!

Finally, a massive, massive thanks to John Gillard, Liz Benison and Julie Fisher for supporting us as the Capgemini Kinabalu Challenge team and believing we could do it. John, thanks for pushing us when we needed it.

Oh, and thanks Ali for being there for the first half of the journey, and being such an outstanding dancing pirate :-)

Right, enough of that - time to go to Borneo!!

I'll be tweeting from the Challenge whenever I can at www.twitter.com/dancunningham (which is re-posted to Facebook and Yammer with the tag #borneo)

(I hope I haven't missed anyone, but please don't be offended if I have, it's been a long journey we do appreciate your support!)

What's the CRAZIEST thing you've ever done for charity?

Well, I've done quite a few crazy things in my time for charity - dressing up as a cow and running around Soho, going vegan for a month, standing around in the freezing cold with a collection bucket to catch last-minute Christmas shoppers, but which is the craziest??

Well, we're running a competition to find out, and to see who has done the craziest thing for charity!

The one with the most voted upon story by Friday 15th January will receive a FREE YEAR'S MEMBERSHIP from our friends at TasteLondon, giving you 50% off at 1000s of excellent restaurants around London. A truly great prize!

It's open to everyone, so head over to http://bit.ly/crazything to submit your story!

(and if you don't live in London, this will make a storming great gift for someone, and surely sharing crazy stories is good enough reason to enter anyway!?!)

Or, just vote for my craziest thing :-) (please do!)

I know some of you must have done equally crazy (or even crazier) things than me, so...

What's the CRAZIEST thing you've ever done for charity?

Two weeks left, £850 still to raise!

Gosh, just two weeks today until we fly out to Borneo!

It's been an incredible adventure so far, and the fundraising has been a much greater challenge than any of us could ever have imagined, but we're now over £9000 towards out £10k target.

That makes us all incredibly proud, but there is still a way to go!

If anyone can help out by contributing even a small amount towards that final £850, please make your donation at http://www.justgiving.com/borneoforthis

The money we're raising is giving young people who've had a bad life so far the opportunity to turn it around by proving to themselves that they can do some good in the world. That means they go and work on incredibly valuable community projects with Raleigh all around the world (for example, in Borneo - building Gravity Water Feeds to give remote communities much needed clean, fresh water, or building enclosures at the Sun Bear Conservation Centre or many more).

Really important, valuable stuff on its own - plus it's helping young people from disadvantaged backgrounds realise their potential to grow into young leaders who can have a positive impact in the world. So it's a double win!

Please help us reach that £10k.

If you've already contributed, can you think of a friend who might want to support this cause? Passing on the message is just as valuable as making a donation!

Thank you.

26 days to go until the toughest challenge of our lives!

Every now and then, I am reminded that this challenge is going to be bloody difficult.

You'll notice a few people in that video look just slightly tired and worn out. Well, this is why:

The Kinabalu Challenge - 9 stages over 6 days

1. (Mon 22 January 2010 - a.m.) 4km running race

After just two days of acclimatisation to the extreme heat and humidity of Borneo, the challenge kicks off with a 4k race into the jungle. I guess Lonely Planet's advice "do not do anything too physically demanding and avoid strenuous activity when you arrive in a hot climate" is kind of out of the window then!

2. (Mon - p.m.) Setting up camp

A nice hotel maybe? OK, a camp site? Tents even? Nope, this is proper Bear Grylls extreme survival stuff - building our own hammocks, shelter, fire - right out there in the jungle amidst all the mud, insects, cobras, scorpions and tropical rainfall.

3. (Tue - a.m.) Mountain bike / relay run - 6k - very hilly

After a trek out into the heart of the jungle, this stage involves taking it in turns biking and running on 6k of muddy off-road terrain, Camelbak's most definitely required!

4. (still Tue - p.m.) White Water Rafting

Then, in the afternoon, white water rafting back to camp. Time to get those upper body muscles engaged.

5. (Wed - a.m.) Bamboo Rafting

Yesterday too easy? OK, this time we have to build our own rafts and race back up-river, remember all this time we're competing against 7 other teams.

6. (Wed - still a.m.) 8.5k bike/run

Flatter terrain this time, so longer distance, not like we'll be getting slightly knackered by this point or anything!

7. (Wed - p.m.) Kayak relay race

2-man kayaks now. Probably in torrential rain. This is a very tough day.

8. (Fri) Up the mountain!

Mt Kinabalu. The biggest one in South-East Asia. Described as the "Stair Master from HELL", we will be ascending from 2000m to 3400m on this day - which should take us about 5-7 hours and really work those calf muscles.

9. (Sat) 2am start, to the 4100m peak

As if this isn't hard enough already, let's get up at 2am for the final stretch to the 4100m peak of Mt Kinabalu. This time we're raising against the sun-rise. Steep, rocky, freezing cold and in the pitch dark.

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Now, each of those activities on their own might not seem too difficult. But doing them one after the other on six consecutive days. And doing them in hot, humid, tropical conditions. And doing them not at a leisurely pace, but in a race for which we've been whisked half way across the world. That's all going to make it hard.

But that is the challenge we're embarking upon in 26 days time. That's the crazy thing we're doing for charity. That's what we're doing to persuade and inspire people to donate to Raleigh's youth development programme: to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds get out there, and to help Raleigh make an impact on community projects around the world. That's what our £10,000 target is for.

We've got 26 days.

We've got £862.86 left to raise.

As we are about to embark on the toughest, craziest challenge of our lives, please help us out with £5, £10 or whatever you can manage - http://www.justgiving.com/borneoforthis

Thank you.

Hell Runner - I did it!

Hell Runner - I did it!

Wow, never before have I seen / ran through / slipped all over / waded up to my chest through quite so much mud!

It was VERY tough, but I completed the 10-mile Hell Runner cross-country race quite a bit faster than my 2 hour target – in 1 hour and 31 minutes :-D

The first muddy puddle that you had no choice but running through was the moment I realised, right, let’s just go for this. Yes, I’m going to get ridiculously muddy, and yes, my feet will be absolutely squelchingly soaked. But 2000 other people are doing this with me, and at least it isn’t raining!

From the firecrackers and smoke grenades that marked the start to the 3-piece band marked the half-way point, it wasn’t actually too bad.

Then came the “bog of doom”- chest-deep gloopy, cold and energy-sapping thick mud, followed of course by a massive muddy scramble. After that they just kept it coming – ridiculously long, steep hills, lots of scrambling and sliding up and down – it was certainly hard to keep going at times.

Then atop another tough hill, suddenly there was another steeply-embanked 20-30m river crossing, just as deep as the first. Then more hills, more mud, and more wading. You get the idea.

But then all of a sudden it was the finish line. And I sprinted for it!

I had completed Hell Runner.

I felt ready for anything!!

Ready for Borneo certainly, bring it on!

HELL Runner 2009

Hmm, not quite sure what I've got myself into here...



This is the first big event in my training in the run up to Borneo.

It's going to be nature at its toughest. It's 11 miles (longer than I've ever run before). That's almost a half marathon, but I think it's going to be much tougher with rough terrain, steep hills and muddy pools to navigate.

So I've got to train hard over the next couple weeks. Today I did my first really long practice run - from Clapham Junction, 1.5 times around Clapham Common, back to Brixton, then twice around Brockwell Park. Mapping it out when I got home, I was pleasantly surprised that it was a total of 9.3 miles - so not far off my target.

I think the longest I ran before was Bay to Breakers in San Francisco in 2005. That was 7.5 miles, which I did in 1:06 so my target is to hit the same pace for Hell Runner.

Wish me luck!! Or even better, make a donation to Borneo for this - we're over 2/3 of the way towards our target of £10k now but still got over £3000 to raise by the end of the year...

Join the Quest for the Golden Chicken!

I love making things like this happen...

If you're going to be in London on Saturday, do join us for this treasure-hunting, sightseeing, beer-drinking, clue-solving day of mystery, intrigue and adventure!

As you can tell, I'm rather excited about it :-)

More info / sign up here

JP Morgan - 472nd (in the women's race)

Every year Capgemini enters a big team into the J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge – and this year was no exception. Among the 12,000+ running in London on Wednesday there were 90 from Capgemini, including Ali, Andy and I...

Head over to the Borneo for this! Blog to see how we did.