I DID IT!

I DID IT! YEEEEEAAAAAAH!

The total challenge weight I lifted today was 3520kg, and I completed in just over 46 minutes - time to spare!

So of course what better way to use it than to bust out a new PB on my dead lift!

And to think on this date and time one year ago year ago I was literally fighting for my life at Musgrove Park hospital after suffering complications from a major surgery. 

By the grace of God I am not only living and breathing but have nearly fully recovered and am getting stronger by the day!

I simply cannot express how grateful I am to everyone who has supported and encouraged me over the last year. It has been really tough, but my road to recovery would definitely not have been the same without the love of God, my family and my friends upholding me and spurring me on.

Thank you all!

Janey

xx

Pledges have topped £400!

A quick tally up on pledges and donations this morning shows we have now reached over the £400 mark!

This is awesome - only another £100 to achieve the target! Whoo!

8 days left til Challenge day, so please spread the word!

Thank you everyone who has  been so generous in their giving so far :)

Janey x

Made today's Bristol Post!

The Challenge made today's Bristol Post!


As ever - you can always rely on the paper to get minor details like someone's name wrong ;)
But I can't complain because right at the very end they were good enough to put the details of how to donate money - so we got to the point in the end! 

Gotta be grateful for that juicy little publicity freebie - I wonder if it will inspire anyone to donate?

Janey x

Paparazzo me!

Smile for the camera!

After yesterday's press release I was stoked that the Bristol Evening Post rang me first thing this morning to interview me - quick work!

They sent their photographer along the the gym this afternoon to snap me during my training session - I can definitely say it is very weird being photographed when you're dead lifting; not sure I got my technique 100%!

Hopefully the Challenge should get some coverage in the paper either Thursday or Friday this week.

Wahoo!

Janey x

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/home 

Official Press Release out - entitled "Back from the dead woman takes part in charity weight lifting challenge!"

The official Press Release has gone out!


In order to capture the attention of Bristol's potentially novelty-hungry media, I've entitle the Press Release:

"Back from the dead woman takes part in charity weight lifting challenge!"

You gotta have a laugh ;)

Here's the press release in full - let's hope we can get some interest!

Janey x


PS And a quick update on the fundraising - nearing the £380 mark now - WOWZA!

Upping the challenge target!

Time for a quick update on my training for the Challenge....

I did a dry run of the challenge schedule last week and whaddya know, I totally smashed it! Wow! 

Well now, I can't go ahead knowing I'm making things too easy for myself, can I?

So..... I've had a bit of a rethink ...... and I've done a bit of a rework of my schedule and tried it out today, and now this will be a much tougher challenge for me....check out my new schedule below...

So, the NEW challenge target is to lift 3 1/2 metric tons in an hour. That's an extra ton compared to my original target!

Can I do it? YES I CAN!

Please keep the money coming in folks - and thanks for all your awesome support and encouragement so far,

Janey x

WOW! Donations have topped £300!

WOW - Since my last post only a few days ago, donations and pledges have gone over the £300 mark!

This is amazing! A HUGE thank you to everyone who's shown their support for this inspiring project. 

The overall cost of the building will be around £2500, and I'd like us to get £500 of that raised from this challenge. So we are 2/3rds the way there! 

Awesome.

Janey :)

FAQ: What is power lifting?

Since starting this Challenge, so many people have asked me "What is power lifting?", often following it up with, "Is that where they stand up with the bar over their head?"

So, I thought I'd try to answer it best as I can, in case you're wondering!

Everyone's familiar with running, right?  Well you could say 'running' is a general term for a type of exercise, and then there are different 'sports' that are derived from it, which people can do competitively or just for fun - like the half marathon,  the 100m sprint, or the 4000 metres etc.

Well, much like running, weight training is a general term for a type of exercise and it too has various 'sports' derived from it.  The main three of these are:

1) Power lifting
2) Weight lifting
3) Body-building

What's the difference? 

Power lifting is a total body strength sport, made of three 'lifts' called 

• Dead lift
• Bench press
• Squat

This is an awesome video showing what power lifting is all about  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMIGc-PqsBc 

Weight lifting is generally taken to mean the Olympic sport of weightlifting. Like power lifting, it's also a total body strength sport. It's made up of three 'lifts' (with very silly names):

• Snatch
• Clean and Jerk (done as one exercise in Olympics weightlifting)

Body building is a branch of weight training that focus on a specific type of muscle development. The exercises used are targeted to work on single muscle groups and they're designed to 'hypertrophy' (bulk up) the muscles. The 'sport' element of body building is that people compete against a set of aesthetic standards. 

Unfortunately, body building is often what people bring to mind when they hear the word 'weight training', but it is only one sub-group. In fact, some body builders become so hypertrophied that they end up having little functional strength! See the photo below ..... Photoshop anyone? ;)

Fundraising update! The £££s are a-coming in!

Wow - only two weeks into fundraising and already the donations and pledges have reached £160!

I'd love to reach a target of £500 (or more!) so please go to www.paypal.com/uk/send and make your donation to liftforhopechallenge@gmail.com or, if you will see me in the near future, remind me to remind you to sponsor me!

Thank you so much :) 

Janey

We have the building quote! Fancy a trip to the river for sand?

The building project will be for two dorm rooms - take a look below to see the real deal of the quote Uganda style! 

For sure, this is rough and ready - but it is a small sign that a dream is becoming a reality!

Amongst many other things we're going to need 7000 blocks, 4 trips to the river for sand, 50kg of nails, and 27 sheets of corrugated iron - wow!

We need about £2,500 in total for the project - yes really - it's not much is it? Every £10 donated could buy roughly:

• 133 blocks
• 800 grams of nails
• 1 trip to the river for sand
• 3 corrugated iron sheets

If you want to donate online, that would be awesome! Please visit www.paypal.com/uk/send and enter your donation amount and email. Send it to liftforhopechallenge@gmail.com 

Please spread the word, thank you :)

Blessings

Janey x

What is the money being raised for?

If you want to know what I'm raising money for, please read on...

Imaging having both your parents killed in war, or dying of AIDS.

Imagine having no hope and no power to resist being sold into the sex trade as a child or being forced to fight in the civil war before you even had a chance to grow up. 

Hundreds of kids in Uganda face this reality. We only hear about the war and the corruption, but behind the headlines Rock Of Ages reaches out every day to rescue these children and to give them love, hope and a future. 

Many of the guardians for the orphans are widows or abandoned mums.  They don’t turn away anyone even though they have very little.

The money raised from this challenge will be used to buy building materials to give these children a healthier and safer living environment; many are currently living in haulage crates and squats because the bricks-and-mortar buildings are just not big enough to house all the orphans who are being rescued and brought into Rock Of Ages.

A project earlier this year at Rock of Ages raised money for beds for some of the orphans living in haulage crates. Seeing the joy on the kids faces when the beds are delivered is one of the things that inspired me to set this challenge up. 

Check out the video here http://youtu.be/X7GnCmwcqWA - the bit with the kids and their beds being delivered is at 3m00s.

Some screen shots below...

How to donate

OK, so here's a fairly vital piece of info for all of you- how to donate!

If I see you personally between now and Challenge Day, I'll undoubtedly ask you to sponsor me, or if you're really special, I'll give you a sponsorship form to take away and badger your mates with!

If not, then if you have a PayPal account, it's really easy to donate on line. 

Go to www.paypal.com/uk/send and fill in your email, the amount and also the 'send to' address as liftforhopechallenge@gmail.com

Couple of clicks, job done!

Thank you so much for the awesome support.

Please keep checking back for regular updates, piccies and news.

Janey x

The challenge is set!

On Saturday 15^th December I will be taking part in an awesome weight lifting challenge!

The aim is to lift 2½ metric tonnes in one hour using the three main power lifting techniques of the dead lift  squat and bench press. This is the equivalent weight of 1000 bricks, which leads nicely onto...

___________________________________________

***STOP PRESS*** as of Monday 3rd December The challenge has been raised to 3.5 tonnes in a hour - http://liftforhopechallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/upping-challenge-target.html

                                                             

_____________________________________

.....

                                                         

What’s it for? 

All this is in aid of a building project at Rock Of Ages – an orphanage in Kampala, Uganda.

WOW!

It’s such an amazingly inspiring project – please keep checking back to find out more and get updates on fundraising, news and photos of the project on the ground!