Esther's Charity Cycle In Lockdown - £4600 Raised For NHS Charities Together

After 36 hours of pedalling, dozens of water bottles and a huge amount of support and encouragement via Facebook Live, Esther was finally able to bring her legs to rest on Tuesday evening after raising a total of £4635 for NHS Charities Together.

It was only on Saturday evening that I noticed a BBC Sport article about how Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas had just completed 3 x 12 hour sessions on his turbo trainer to raise funds for the same charity.  It was the spark that lit the blue touch paper.  Less than half a day later, at 0730 on Sunday morning, Esther started her own mammoth turbo-challenge.

Apart from a handful of sub-60 second comfort breaks, she pedalled right through until 1930 that evening without stopping. She did the same thing again the next day (Monday) and again the day after that. A total of 36 hours of riding on the turbo trainer completed in just 60 hours.

Right from the outset Esther found support online, with friends and family tuning in to watch her grinding out the hours on the Facebook Live feed. By the end of day one she's raised £750. By the end of day two the total had climbed to £1750. But it was after 5 hours on day three, still with 7 more hours to go, when Team RH Fitness shared her challenge on their Facebook page that the event really took off.

In seconds the number of viewers jumped from 2 to 200, and just kept climbing, topping out at close to 500 viewers. Team RH Fitness then offered a £1000(!) donation if the feed was shared 1000 times. It took just fifteen minutes to hit the total. After that the support from outside hardly wavered. Comments and encouragement streamed in, reinvigorating Esther after more than 30 hours of effort and most importantly the donations started to flood in.

By the time she was able to bring her legs to a stop the total stood at £4300, an amount that continued to climb after the Bucks Herald put out a back page spread about the fundraiser the very next day.  Currently the total is an incredible £4635!

Thank you to all who donated and supported Esther throughout the 3 days.  She looks after herself really well in terms of great nutrition, good sleep, yoga and more and we've both been amazed at how quickly her body is healing, repairing and recovering.... who knows what's next!

Esther wants to send out her own thanks and share a few reflections about the experience in the next days on the blog but in the meantime she's been posting a few thoughts and videos on our Facebook page @estheranddan

A MASSIVE THANK YOU AGAIN TO EVERYONE!