March the Month

Did you know that 1 in 8 men will get prostate cancer in their life? That’s why it’s so important you should get yourself checked, and that’s why we’re rising to the Challenge and Marching the Month for Prostate Cancer UK.

For the whole month of September, 3 members of staff embarked on a challenge to raise awareness and funds for Prostate Cancer UK. To do this they would be attempting to walk at least 11,000 steps every day for the whole month of September!

For our removal men out on the job, they can do 11k steps before brunch! So why would this be a challenge for 3 of our employees? Well, these 3 gentlemen just so happen to be our Managing Director, Neil Purdie. Our General Manager, Robert Cooper, and our Marketing Manager, Mark Scoular. Check out their profiles over on our staff page. Due to their office based working environment, and having eyes bigger than their bellies, their average daily step count is around 5-7k steps, literally half their new daily target! So this wasn’t going to be an easy task by any stretch of the imagination!

Probably the most unlikely candidate for a challenge of this magnitude, our MD Neil stepped up to the plate big time, clocking in an impressive 380,692 steps for the whole of September.

It wasn’t late night walks that got him over his target either. Although he will admit he had to go back out for a walk on a couple of occasions to get his steps in, the majority of his steps came from getting up at 6am and getting the trucks and vans ready for the day ahead.

We’ve no idea how much weight he lost over the month, at a guess at least 10lbs though going by how baggy his shirt has become! He has promised he will continue to March the Month, and eat just that little more healthily!

Still in shape from his Winter Cleanse, Robert had no trouble adapting to his new walking target. So much so, he actually upped his daily target to 13k steps!

The majority of Robert’s steps came at a similar time to Neil’s. By walking his trusty miniature schnauzer every morning before work, he ensured his mandatory 11k steps a day were almost complete before breakfast!

As Robert had already gotten himself into fine walking shape by sticking to his New Year’s resolution, he says his weight had stayed relatively the same. However the little extra walks had allowed his diet to be a little less restrictive (read that as he ate more biscuits!). Robert has stated he will continue his walking and is still trying to keep to his own target of 13k steps a day. Overall Robert managed to £235 and hit a total of 428,509 steps! That’s over 14k steps per day, well done Robert!

With the biggest amount raised, adding almost £300 to the team total, our Marketing Manager had his work cut out for him. Traditionally never a morning person, Mark relied on a 5km route from Blackburn to Seafield and back in the early evenings.

With his dog Roman by his side, Mark enjoyed that endorphin boost you get every time you exercise properly. In fact he was enjoying it so much he was doing more walking that ever before, managing to lose half a stone in the process, without changing his diet one bit. Imagine how much he could lose if he didn’t go for that roll and sausage every morning, or those twice daily shop runs for cans of energy juice!

Mark did struggle on week 3 with a bad cold, that saw him having to do a few walks close to midnight, in the rain, in order to get his steps in. However, in spite of this Mark hit a total of 444,084 steps. That’s almost 15k steps a day, a target Mark wants to hit next year, or maybe even 22k a day?

The target at the start of the month for our team was to complete the challenge and raise £500. All hoping to raise at least £100 each and they managed to smash both targets. Between the 3 of them they covered just short of 1000 miles (937 to be precise!), 1,253,285 steps and a total amount of £720 raised for Prostate Cancer UK. Next year the plan is to hit 500k steps each, and raised at least £1000!