Jonathan Mangham fundraising story
Seven years since 'Dark Times At The Tour du Mont Blanc', and two years after intending to do it again we finally went back this July - 330km and 8500m of climbing in a one day ride literally around Mont Blanc.
The plan was always to raise money for Myeloma UK this year, a small charity which helps and supports people like my dad diagnosed with Myeloma, and funds research in to the currently incurable form of blood cancer but then two months ago my friend Alison tragically lost her life to EGFR Positive lung cancer, and I decided to do another ridiculous challenge in her memory.
A challenge which is representative of the mountain to climb that faces people diagnosed with cancer, so I am adding EGFR+ to my fundraising efforts and tomorrow, June 3, I'm attempting an Everesting - the mind numbing challenge of riding up and down the same hill until cumulatively climbing the 8848m height of Everest.
I've chosen a particularly small hill near to home and I am going to have to ride up and down it 366 times covering almost 300km if I am going to make it all the way.
I made it! It was a heck of a day on the bike, truly one of the hardest rides I have done, but enjoyable once you get past the pain, and rewarding to be able to raise over £600 for EGFR + so far. I have my eye on taking part in another mad event in a few weeks time!
An attempt to get a world record for the most number of people completing an ‘Everesting’ on the same hill in one day. I had an impromptu go a few weeks ago on a little hill near to me and bailed after 5300m of climbing in 12hours, I’m hoping a bigger hill (in the Peak District) and more event support will see me push on through to 8848m! Hopefully by then I’ll also be past £1000 raised for you.
I have had to make two separate pages:
One for Myeloma UK: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/darktimes2022myeloma
And one for EGFR+: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/darktimes2022
Please support both of these two charities if you can, both are massively underfunded compared to the usual suspects, and both are sources of great support for patients and families.
You can learn more about them here: