Challenge Henley Earthquake Appeal Winner Announced
Created On: 12 April 2011
The Race Organisers from the Challenge Family recently donated a
place for their race to help the victims of the earthquake in New
Zealand. The places were put up for auction and the winner
for Challenge Henley was Marcus Cookham. We asked Marcus to
tell us a bit more about himself and to tell us why he wanted to
enter:
"I am a 38 year old Chartered Surveyor from Woburn Sands near
Milton Keynes married to Carla with two beautiful kids Eva (2 yrs)
and Samuel (3 months).
I did complete a couple of Olympic distance events in the late
nineties (Brighton and Windsor) but I do consider myself very much
a novice in triathlon terms. Up until a few weeks ago my
longest ever bike ride was 40 miles. I STILL can't get my head
around the thought of doing 112 miles on a bike let alone then
getting off the bike and running a marathon.
I am a keen runner and a member of Bedford Harriers AC. In
Oct 2010 I achieved a long term goal of a sub 3 hr marathon when I
completed Abingdon Marathon in 2h 56m 55s. After five minutes
of enjoying this result I knew I needed another goal to keep me out
of mischief.
The idea of me completing a long course triathlon event seemed
so outrageous it was funny. I am not quite sure how it
happened but I found myself telling friends and family I was going
to do one.
..... once I'd heard that Challenge were staging Challenge
Henley I decided this was the one for me, mainly because of the
great setting and the amazing reputation of the Challenge
Series.
Although I've been training with Challenge Henley in mind for
eight weeks now I had put off actually entering - mainly through
fear of actually taking the plunge. During my training I have
been listening to IM Talk podcast. When they said they were
auctioning a place off in aid of the Christchurch Earthquake
Fund I thought this is an ideal opportunity to book my spot
and contribute funds to such a great cause.
When I actually won the auction I was elated….. for a while
anyway. Now I am 51% excited, 49% terrified!
Roll on Sun 18th Sept!"
Tags: news,lifestyle,justracing
