The Full Recipro Team

The Recipro team recently took a weekend out from diverting surplus building materials into community projects to take on a charity challenge.

The Recipro team is very pleased to announce that we were successful in our charity challenge – The Yorkshire 3 peaks and in doing so have raised just over £1,700, with all the money raised going to Marie Curie Cancer Care.

We arrived at our cottage Friday evening which provided the perfect base to explore Yorkshire. We decided that the best prep before a big walk would be a nice early night but then Les suggested we go the pub and for some reason that suggestion won most of us over.

The nights’ drinking was certainly not a waste -although it made the early start a little more difficult. We were all in very high spirits as the Recipro team roared to victory in the local pub’s quiz night beating a team who had apparently won the last 4 quiz nights! With this victory under our belt we were sure that nothing could stop our winning streak!

We all managed to get our head down for some sleep by about 1.00am which made the 5.30am start all the more horrific! If the early morning wasn’t bad enough, the image of Brendon all kitted up in the brightest yellow coat (‘It’s what the players wear!’) I’d ever seen was enough to tip anyone over the edge. Lawrence and a few of the others had a little bit of breakfast for energy we then packed our lunches for the journey ahead and drove to the starting village.

Brendon, Michael and Paul facing the stormy conditions

By 7.00am we’d all began the walk, taking on the first peak in little over an hour. The first peak was a good start especially as I was feeling a little worse for wear (from lack of sleep only, nothing to do with the beer the night before). At the top of the peak everyone looked in good spirits, one down 2 to go! As we began our decent down it was clear there ways 2 you could go, over the path or through the muddy bogs, Michael decided it’d be funnier if we took the muddier route (which I think we all agreed with). We all found the slips of others rather amusing at one point a rather short lady went into the bog up to her chest, it took a few strong and brave fellas to pull her out (none of the Recipro team offered, frightened they may slip into it all as well!).

Other than the odd slip or the time I lost my boot in a bog the Recipro team got through the bogs relatively unscathed (well compared with that unfortunate lady we looked fairly clean!) We thought the ordeal was over but there was still a number of fences and streams that had to be crossed, whenever we crossed a difficult section we all waited for the team members behind to catch up (they thought for moral support but the truth is we were just hoping to catch a slip or fall on camera, to give all our users a laugh!)

For most of the day we’d had sunshine, the floor was wet from the rain from the night before but the weather was pretty nice. That changed at the top of the second peak, all of a sudden the heavens opened and down came a hail storm, after 5 minutes of us all cowering behind a wall for shelter we began the journey down, this was one of the hardest sections with fairly steep and very uneven steps showing the way down, in almost single file we went down, the hail had made the trip down even more treacherous with a few people losing their footing.

2 down 1 to go, that’s all I kept thinking in my head. Get one more peak out the way and we’re done. The walk to the next peak wasn’t as difficult or as long as the journey between the first and second peaks. After an hour or so we arrived at the third peak, looking up at the peak was daunting, we were all exhausted but we needed one last push and we’d have done it! When we got to the top the relief at reaching the third summit was huge (had we known there was still another 5 miles before we finished we may not have been so relieved!). The tops of all the peaks were pretty cloudy and all were freezing but you could barely see 20ft in front of us, at the top of the third, as we stared into the mist an image appeared, it was unclear what it was at first but then as the mist began to clear we realised it was Brendon in his bright yellow coat, this gave us a much needed lift as we all chuckled to ourselves!

On the way down everyone was just focused on getting a nice hot shower and having a sit down, it was the longest 5 miles I’d ever walked, every step hurt! But eventually the village of Horton in Ribblesdale appeared – we’d finished the challenge and we were all ecstatic!

That night there was big plans, we were going to go out and celebrate maybe make an appearance at the local boozer, we bought a few beers on the way back and some wine. By the time we’d all gotten back, got showered and changed it was clear that none of us were up for a night on the tile. Lawrence went to rest his eyes for 5 minutes and instead woke up the next morning! Brendon was the last man standing and even he was in bed before 11 which says a lot I think.

I think we will all look back at this weekend as a huge success and a great team building exercise. There are a lot of funny memories from the day and it was a great achievement by everyone involved.

Paul, Beckie, Mike & Les at the top of Peak 3

We raised over £1,700, so I’d like to thank all of our sponsors for their generosity which is going to Marie Curie which is a great charity and it’s still not too late to sponsor, just visit https://www.justgiving.com/TheReciproChallenge. To see more images from the walk and more please visit the Facebook page.

Now, has anyone got any suggestions for next years challenge?