South Coast
Mighty Hike
The distance of a marathon is 26.2 miles; it is also the distance
from Brighton Racecourse to Eastbourne’s Helen Gardens –
the route of the 2015 Macmillan South Coast Mighty Hike. Two
of our MWB employees, along with their family and 400 other
fundraisers, were brave enough to take on this momentous
task. Aimee Wynne (AW) and Emma Parrish (EP) share their
experience:
AW: “26 miles from Brighton to
Eastbourne. What is the worst that can
happen??” I thought to myself and
then Emma started talking to me about
snakes…….
EP: I was (and still am) adamant that
I will never run a marathon, yet when
the Macmillan Mascots were first
approached to take part in SCMH, I was
only too eager to sign both myself and
my partner, Matt, up. It’s just a walk I
thought; I walk everyday, it will just be
one foot in front of the other… How
wrong I was! We attempted to entice
more people to take part and managed
to get the support of one other MWB
employee, Aimee, who also managed
to cajole her parents to join in! Matt
and I did our first training walk at the
beginning of May, walking 11 miles from
Hove to Rottingdean and part of the
way back. A few weeks later, we tried
again, this time managing 13 miles and
felt very achy the next day and that,
honestly, was the end of our trial walks; I
was starting to become very concerned
that we not make 15 miles, let alone
26.2! Nevertheless we invested in hiking
boots, micropore tape, blister plasters
and a rucksack load of jelly beans and
nuts. On the morning of the 11th July
with a vat of coffee running through us,
we arrived at Brighton racecourse at
7.15am.
AW: We met Emma and Matt at the
venue where they were artistically
attaching their numbers to their bags.
The day started with a Zumba warm
up. There were, of course, compulsory
selfies taken to try and capture some
of the action shots – Matt in particular
took it very seriously and enjoyed the
102
shaky-shaky parts! As the temperature
rose we realised that we were going to
have a hot day ahead of us and unlike
Emma I was wearing leggings; Bad idea!
We all started off together, an excitable
crowd walking along the racecourse
blissfully unaware of what was ahead of
us. It was as Emma tricked me into think
the first racecourse distance marker was
our one-mile sign that I think we realised
just how far we had to go! It was only
four miles in when I changed out of the
“not-so-walked-in” hiking boots and
into my trusted trainers! Emma and Matt
ploughed ahead, with their long legs as
we watched th V