2nd July to 2nd August 2010 Create an on-line page to collect sponsorship of your involvement with WoW. After the button below, click on the 'Make you page' button and when prompted for what you want to do choose 'An organised event' and 'Walk over Wales'. [WoW page] [Route map] [Walk Blog] [After Walk Blog] [Photo gallery] [Sponsorship]
2nd July to 2nd August 2010
Create an on-line page to collect sponsorship of your involvement with WoW. After the button below, click on the 'Make you page' button and when prompted for what you want to do choose 'An organised event' and 'Walk over Wales'.
[WoW page] [Route map] [Walk Blog] [After Walk Blog] [Photo gallery] [Sponsorship]
SPONSOR OUR WALKERS. This is a really easy way to do it. Your support will greatly encourage them to add on the miles. We are aiming for £25,000. [Sponsorship total]
Click on a name to go to a walker's sponsorship page. Or click here to sponsor the event as a whole.
Our Walkers over Wales
Stacey Reason, (plus Jorge the last week) from Toronto, Canada
Andy Williams, from Singapore
Charlton Thear, from the Canary Islands
Dan Chambers, from San Diego, California
Andrew Wakelin, from Wales
Walkers elsewhere with sponsorship pages
Dianne Berryman, Australia
Lorraine-Baguley, Australia
Other walkers elsewhere
Margaret Carter, Kidderminster, UK Summer Hamilton Brown, USA Tanya Rafford-Raper, Australia Bonnie Wynne, New South Wales, Australia
WE HAVE FINISHED!
We made the ITV Wales news at 6pm on 2nd August 2010, see the YouTube link in the press coverage section below. Please also read the final blog entries. Sponsorship pages remain active - please support our walkers.
We ran a week's holiday/training for more people in July 2011, details here and are planning more in July/August 2012, details here.
A sponsored walk over Wales. Over from North to South and over the main mountain peaks. 210 miles in distance and 35,000 feet of ascent. This adventure is rightly abbreviated to 'WoW'!
The objective of the walk is to raise awareness of this rare muscle disease - McArdle Disease - so that more children are diagnosed at an early age and rescued from a painful, damaging and miserable time at school. Most suffer throughout their childhood and don't get diagnosed until their 20s or 30s, and many are probably never correctly diagnosed. We hope this walk will bring McArdle's to the attention of teachers, youth leaders and parents as well as the medical profession.
Diagnosis enables children to get the best advice about how to avoid anaerobic activity which damages their muscles, and how to safely build their aerobic capacity. They can also learn about a suitable, healthy diet. In this way they will be fitter, healthier, more active, have less episodes of serious injury and avoid stays in hospital.
PRESS COVERAGE
PRESS INFORMATION
OTHER BACKGROUND
A challenging route
The walk was led by Andrew Wakelin, AGSD-UK Type V Co-ordinator, who has McArdle's Disease himself but is an experienced hill walker. The route was planned from his extensive experience of walking with McArdle's. The route took in the main peak in each of the mountain groups as we travelled south. On high mountain days, there was a lower level alternative in the event of bad weather and anyone not wanting to do the high level walk.
Open to all
The walk was open to anyone to join for the part they felt up to, be it 100 yards, 100 miles or the whole distance. We provided a support car and pre-booked overnight accommodation, and enabled everyone to opt in or out of days and part days as they felt necessary. Other walkers joined various day's walk and we helped by running them back to their cars at that day's start point.
The finish - Cardiff - 2nd August
We finished at the Senedd (the parliament building) on the waterfront at Cardiff Bay. Many friends came to join us for the last day's walk (4 miles on almost flat, very easy terrain), with a big celebration at the end and a buffet lunch reception in the Pierhead Building.
Photos and blog
We uploaded a blog and photos for each day's walk, telling all about it. People with McArdle's from all around the world followed our footsteps all the way. See the links above. You can run a slideshow of each day's photos.
Supporters around the world
Others from around the world who were unable to join us in Wales lent their support by walking in their own country. We are going to log all their distances and add up the total mileage.