Sorry it's been a bit quiet on here of recent, time is flying by quickly and summer's approaching fast which means too many things to do and too little time, so bit of a short one this time, but nonetheless here's a little write up of a lovely event from last month:
On the 10th of April, an awful lot (250ish I believe, I'm not sure now!) longboarders, inliners and rollerskaters coming from near and far gathered on a former military airfield in the South East of England. Their mission - to skate around what is nowadays being used as a test track for a popular motor show on British telly (Top Gear) for (as close as it gets to) 24 hours in a bid to raise money for the Haiti earthquake victims through a charity called Shelterbox. Below is an excerpt of the SKAITI blurb, written by main organiser Jo Coles:
My son Jack is 13. He saw the effects of the Haiti earthquake on TV, and he wanted to do something, so he came up with a great idea. We like to skate, and we like to skate a lot... so why not skate for Haiti? Brilliant! The plan was simple: we would skate a lot.. as far as we could go in 24 hours, to raise as much money as possible to help Haiti. Just the two of us.
But we needed to find a safe place to skate all day and all night. So we contacted Dunsfold Park in Surrey, and asked about using their airfield test track - the one used by the BBC's Top Gear programme. It's a beautiful circuit! They were very keen to help, but they thought we could go further... much further... and invite hundreds of skaters to join us... we were gobsmacked!... and so SKAITI was created!
The weather gods played their part and we arrived to a beautifully sunny yet a bit of a windy day. The challenge was on and we all embarked on our way and got onto the 1.3 mile long oval track, some people simply for the fun of it, some people to beat their own personal record - everybody had their own individual goal, and all of it in the name of charity for a good cause.
The day passed much quicker than one would have thought, and before we knew it the sun had disappeared and the runway lights were switched on to guide the skaters through the night. I must admit that I do not know who/if anybody actually managed the full 24 hours without any sleep but I do know of some damn impressive mileages that were achieved, personally I'd never done any distance skating up until that date.
Morning dawned and I woke up to a much chillier morning than the day before. My legs were hurting and I was freezing cold and exhausted from barely sleeping a wink but nonetheless I too made it back onto the track and carried on.
All in all it was an absolutely terrific weekend, I didn't think pushing/pumping around in circles could and would be so much fun! It is indeed very satisfying to propel yourself forward under your own muscle power and to see what you're really capable of.
A massive thank you goes out to everybody involved who made this great event happen! Let's do it again, shall we? I for one very much hope so!
The total added up distance already exceeds 7.500 miles at present which is nearly the way to Haiti and back!
Besides, the fundraising is still going, every little bit helps so please support this fantastic cause :)
http://www.justgiving.com/Skaiti24
Thank you Moe Neve, Frank Hurtley and James Paved Wave for letting me use your photos :)
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