Nikita, Natasha, Alisha and Alannah Ellithorn’s mum Sandra had Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD,) a muscle-wasting condition which her daughter Alannah also lives with. They did the Snowdon challenge to mark what would have been their mum’s 55th birthday. Nikita said:
None of us had ever climbed Snowdon before and only a few of us were keen walkers. I do like to keep fit and for the past few years have taken part in the London Marathon and Great North Run, However, due to Covid, my training was almost non- existent and so I would definitely say a lot of us were taking on a huge challenge.
We chose the Llanberis path to walk and set off around 9 am. This is said to be the easiest climb but longest route. I would say it is not to be underestimated. Our moving time was four hours 46 minutes with our overall elapsed time being seven hours. We had to wait for about an hour for a photo on the summit.There was a lunch stop and of course a lot of photo stops. The weather was amazing on the day. But it does feel very surreal to set off in a T-shirt and then need to put coats and gloves on the higher you go.
Alannah has the same condition as mum (FSHD) so unfortunately cannot join in with these physical events. But she was still very much involved, helping create the event and even waiting in the car at Snowdon for the entire time!!
She added:
For anyone thinking of walking Snowdon to fundraise for muscular dystrophy - just do it! Set a date, get family/friends involved, get some walking practice in and you won't regret it. We all said we would 100% walk Snowdon again, next time challenge one of the different routes. This could definitely be a yearly thing for us getting more people involved. It’s such an achievement and definitely something to tick off your bucket list.
How they did it
- We created an event on our Facebook page and asked people signing up to pay a £10 donation either to our page or create their own Just giving page and donate it to that.
- We bought medals and made certificates for each walker which we gave them at the end.
- We encouraged people to raise a minimum of £50 by either sharing their JustGiving page or completing a football card.
- One person held some mini raffles in our Facebook and Instagram page to raise £230.
- Everyone did amazingly and overall we raised £1310.