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Coast-to-coast in only 24 hours

Lisa Gray
17/ 4/2008

AN IT manager is part of a four-men-and-a-dog team hoping to complete a coast-to-coast crossing of Scotland - in only 24 hours.

Chris Robinson of Heywood company Flexsys, will, with three friends, be led by five-year-old Hungarian hunting dog Aster, to complete the charity trek of 30-miles cycling and 30-miles running.

The team features former BBC reporter Alistair Macdonald, former British and Commonwealth heavyweight boxing champion Scott Welch, and financial adviser and broadcaster Austin Hutchinson.

They hope to raise £25,000 to help sick children at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital as part of the Five Stars Scanner Appeal, which will provide a state-of-the-art MRI scanner for the new Manchester Children’s Hospital.

Chris, from Rochdale, was a young Rochdale Harrier, and competed as a cross country runner for 10 years.

A former sport promoter with top Premier League clubs, he retrained for an IT career in 1997 and has worked in Asia, South America and Dallas, Texas. He now enjoys life at the Green Lane company Flexsys.

Chris, who now lives in Stalybridge, said: "We know this is a serious challenge but nothing like the challenge faced by the children who will make use of the scanner.

"We hope our small contribution will help to change the lives of many sick children."

The group have now been in training for five months and are so confident they are hoping to complete the 60-mile challenge in just 20 hours.

They will start off with a 30-mile bike ride from Beauly on the east coast of Scotland to Glen Affric. They will then walk another 30 miles to the west coast at Loch Duich. In their path they will have four Scottish Munro mountains, each higher than 3,000 feet, to contend with.

Chris said: "We’re all doing okay in training, I just hope we don’t get held up by bad weather conditions on the day. I’ve run the London Marathon, but never done anything quite like this before, so it is a challenge to say the least."

As the leader of the group, Aster the dog has her own website, where she updates a blog on the group’s progress, and people can show their support. The group set off on May 24. See www.k9c2c.co.uk for details.