Cycling from Milan to Venice for mental health
This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, so what better time to kick off my fundraising efforts for Mind, the mental health charity.
About three years ago, with no preparation and only Maoams and the smallest amount of water to fuel us, my friend Suzy and I first jumped on our bikes and went for a ride… and realised we actually enjoyed it.
So now, we’ve decided to ride 211 miles across Italy in 3 days.
This means we have to ACTUALLY get fit, ACTUALLY eat properly, spend a horrific amount of time together, and raise a huge amount of money.
But that’s all ok; because this is us starting to realise that, despite loving food and sitting down for most of our lives, we love riding, we love getting fit and, although Suzy wouldn’t admit it, we love spending time together.
More importantly, we love the work that Mind do.
Both of us have spent more time than we would like experiencing mental health issues, both first hand and with friends and loved ones. We know the pain of having to be ‘normal’ when even getting out of bed seems too hard. So, we can’t think of a better cause than to help people never have to suffer alone, never have to believe that they are somehow not as good and find light in the darkness.
We are packing our Maoams and not enough water, we are putting down our crisps, and we are going to do the hardest thing we’ve ever done.
You can follow our journey (if you want to see training updates and cringey videos) and you can donate too. Please help if you can, this really matters.