A Carlisle woman is to complete a 12-mile challenge in aid of two important charities while also showcasing businesses which help to make the city a great place to live.
Carol Hall will run 12 miles in 12 hours and will showcase 12 businesses, all while raising funds for Young Minds and Diabetes UK.
Starting at 9am on Wednesday, Carol will set off from a business or organisation, wheel for one mile until she reaches her next stop. At each stop she’ll talk to the manager and learn more about what is on offer and how they make their services available to disabled people before moving along to the next location.
This is the latest charity challenge for Carol. She started these challenges back in September as a way to get fit and lose weight whilst helping the wider community.
Her first challenge was 30 miles in one month for refugees and her most recent saw her complete 32 miles in one go, losing 50kg since August.
Carol blogs her progress and adventures under the Name WheelieMum on Facebook, YouTube and her website.
The charities are very personally important to Carol, through her work as a volunteer mentor she’s seen first-hand the effect of the pandemic on young people and wants to ensure they have the resources to cope and become more resilient.
Whilst she is not diabetic, diabetes was a very real possibility given her need to lose weight and lifestyle. Carol, now 50, realised 17 years as an electric wheelchair user was taking a terrible toll on her health and so in August, aged 49, she started to address the problem.
By the time she turned 50 in October, she was already wheeling 10km. Explaining why she chose this challenge Carol said: “This was to be my comeback run following a shoulder injury and it’s my way of supporting both my community locally and people in the wider community in need of the charities services.”
As well as supporting the charities, Carol was also keen to support local business.
“The owners and workers are my neighbours, Carlisle is my city,” she said.
“The pandemic has hurt many small businesses and so I want to help my neighbours show off their services and come out of this pandemic far stronger than they went into it.
Wayne Donough of Well Done Solutions, a disability equipment store, said: “I have known Carol since she approached me with an unusual request to attempt to get into the mountains with a powerchair.
“As a disabled person and parent of a disabled child myself, Well Done Solutions are delighted to support Carol and her charities and look forward to showing off our products and services.”
In the run-up to this event, Carol’s training was interrupted due to a caster on the wheelchair breaking but in true Cumbrian style, this will not deter her. The chair is to be fixed today, just in time to enable her to complete the challenge.
Carol said: “Nothing is going to stop me from completing this run. I am grateful to everyone who is helping me get the chair back functional. The charities and Carlisle are too important to cancel at this stage.”
The event runs from 9am to 9pm on Wednesday.
For more information, visit www.WheelieMum.org.uk
