Elite challenge for Cirencester personal trainer

4:21pm Friday 11th July 2008

A PERSONAL trainer from Cirencester today embarked on a mission to scale the three highest mountains in Britain and cycle the 450 miles in between in 60 hours.

In two and a half days David Mac' McKinnon will complete the Three Peaks Challenge - climbing Mount Snowdon in Wales, England's Scafell Pike and Scotland's Ben Nevis - with the cycle in between upping the level of endurance required.

"Three-peaks is quite widely done now and we had to add a bit of a twist to make people stand up," he said. "You're just adding that element to make it more of a challenge."

"I've spent over six months training for this, it's been long and hard. So I'm excited but I'll be glad to get it out of the way. I'm going to enjoy it while I can, it's going to be tough."

The charity benefiting from Mac's efforts will be Hope For Tomorrow, a Tetbury-based charity that last year launched the world's first mobile chemotherapy unit.

He had originally aimed to raise £100,000 but has found fundraising difficult in the current economic climate.

"We've been sponsored by The Watermark Club and we've had lots of really generous donations from by clients. It's been phenomenal, we've probably raised over £10,000 and I would almost say that nearly 100percent of that has come from personal donations. We've done extremely well."

"Due to the credit crunch we've found it much harder than we thought. Apart from the Watermark company we never got any real corporate backing"

"We're still fundraising until the end of the year, so it's not over when the challenge finishes, fingers crossed we'll keep it going."

His support crew will be members of the 29 Regiment RLC from the Duke of Gloucester Barracks, South Cerney.

Mac said that he was concerned about the rain forecast but admitted the thought of the bacon butty at the end will be keep him going.

To sponsor him visit: www.elitechallenge.co.uk