A six year old Devizes girl with a rare muscle wasting condition is planning 26 laps of her personal therapy assault course, and Kaiser Chief Bassist Simon Rix will do his own Snowdon stair climb as part of the MDUK community's 2.6 challenge, on Sunday 26 April.
Carmela Chillery-Watson, who lives with LMNA-CMD, has set her own massive effort with her assault course garden walk, starting at 2.06pm, to be live-streamed on Facebook. Her mum Lucy Chillery-Watson said:
Carmela usually manages two or three laps of the specially created course, so for her to get out of her wheelchair and walk it for 26 laps is an incredible challenge.
I’m not sure how she’ll cope because that's a lot for her little legs, but knowing her, she'll just pause and then carry on.
Catherine Woodhead, Chief Executive Officer at Muscular Dystrophy UK said,
At MDUK we are 100 per cent behind Carmela’s challenge, what a fantastic way this family have found to show how much muscles matter - we’ll be watching her every step of the way.
Kaiser Chief Bassist Simon Rix, Leeds United legends Ian Harte, Simon Grayson, Danny Mills, and media gurus Bryn law from Sky Sport and Phil Haye are among the team of Leeds fans, ex-players and media folk who will be climbing Mount Snowdon as part of MDUK ambassador Martin Hywood’s 2.6 Challenge.
Martin said:
4,610 steps is the number needed to reach the summit and this will be without the pleasant views and with a good chance of wrecking the carpet.
For the past six years Martin has been a proud ambassador for MDUK’s Move a Mile for Muscles campaign, raising a total £150,000 for vital world class research funded by MDUK. When he told his story of diagnosis and about living with the condition, the story spread like wildfire on social media and raised over £1,000 for MDUK. Since then he has gained a huge team of support, produced a star-studded promotional film called Muscles Matter and taken part in many fundraising events.
MDUK CEO Catherine Woodhead is planning her own family 2.6 Challenge. On 26 April she will do 260 sun salutations while son Eddie and daughter Flossie will tackle the Mount Everest indoor climb.
She said:
I’ve chosen something that uses a lot of muscles, I’m not sure if my kids really understand how mammoth their task is! It would be great to get lots of our MDUK families and households to take on the challenge in their own way.
Keeley (11) and Connor Scott (9), who lost their grandmother to fascioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSH) and whose aunt, Alannah, lives with the same condition, has supported Muscular Dystrophy UK since her mum launched a family fund for she and her three sisters, called Succeeding for Sandra.
Now the youngsters are asking their supporters to nominate them to do a challenge of either 2.6 or 26, of WHATEVER THEY LIKE!
For example, you could donate £2.60 for Keeley to jump up and down for 26 minutes or £2.60 for Connor to run 26 laps of the street, or £5.20 for them both to do a challenge of people’s choice. They just ask that when people donate they leave their name, the name of the person to do the challenge, and whatever they would like them to do here.