Last Friday (27 October) marked the final day of the University’s End to End challenge, which saw colleagues run, walk, cycle and dance 874 miles from Land’s End to John O’Groats. Over 160 staff from across the institution took part in the challenge which launched in March.
Director of Health, Safety and Wellbeing, Naveed Qamar said: “It was fantastic to see so many colleagues participate in the End to End challenge which spanned almost six months. The aim was to get staff moving more, whether that was increasing their steps during the working day or taking up new activities in their personal lives. More than 50 colleagues completed the full 874 miles, and many didn’t stop there clocking several thousand miles. Congratulations to everyone who took part – I hope you will all bring the same level of enthusiasm to our future challenges.”
At the top of the leaderboard in the challenge was lecturer, Mirjam Brady-Van den Bos who logged a phenomenal 6,241 miles. Talking about the challenge she said: “Being active is a way of life for me so I’ve really enjoyed clocking my miles as part of the End to End Challenge. My husband and I don’t have a car, which means all our transport is under our own steam. I walk to work (9 mile round trip), I walk 2 miles at lunchtime (which makes me much more productive afterwards!), and in the weekends we go out on our bikes to explore our lovely Shire.
“I sustained a bad foot injury in May, which meant I had to cycle to work for a couple of months, which ironically boosted my daily mileage. Throughout the challenge, I’ve worked with the Health and Wellbeing team to conduct a qualitative study into University staff’s perception of these fitness challenges – please feel free to get in touch if you’d like to see the data.”