Cyclists take on 24-hour challenge
Cyclist Steven Groom is gearing up for a 24-hour mountain biking race to support a childhood friend battling Motor Neurone Disease.
So far Mr Groom, a self-employed joiner from Benderloch and member of North Argyll Cycle Club, has raised £1,200 in sponsorship for the legendary 2019 Strathpuffer endurance event that he and cycling pal Nick Charlton will be pairing up for on January 19.
Money raised will go to MND Scotland, the charity helping Mr Groom’s friend, Ruth Williamson, who was diagnosed in November 2017 with the terminal illness that stops signals from the brain reaching the muscles.
In March last year, mum-ofone Mrs Williamson, a former Oban High School pupil whose maiden name was Gibson, told her story in The Oban Times to ‘raise as much awareness as possible of this beast of a disease’, she said.
Mr Groom’s page at justgiving.com/fundraising/ steven-groom1 has beaten his £1,000 target for MND Scotland and, to add to it, there is £96 in donations from a Boxing Day ride he organised round Loch Creran, attracting 60 riders.
He hopes more people will donate to his Justgiving page before the start of the Strathpuffer challenge which will take him and Mr Charlton on gruelling 10-mile loops of rugged hillside terrain. Despite being on the verge of pneumonia, Mr Groom managed one loop of the course last year but is fit and ready for a full-on 2019 attempt, clocking up the training miles and holding back on Christmas fare to keep weight off.
Earlier this year, he cycled 240 miles in just one day and it was while he was ‘getting battered by lorries and eating pork pie’ in the saddle that he thought about fundraising.
‘It was something I had a crack at in Mark Beaumont style and, while I was doing it, I thought I should have been doing it for Ruth. So I decided to do the Strathpuffer for her and the charity supporting her, her family and others like them.
‘Ruth has just written birthday cards up to her wee daughter’s 21st, which is just heartbreaking.’
Back in March, Mrs Williamson, who has had to give up work as an energy consultant, told The Oban Times: ‘The most difficult thing for me is my daughter. I can’t bear the thought of not being able to look after her any longer or not be there with her in the future.
‘Like any mum, I utterly adore her and I have shed so many tears thinking about it. It’s tricky, though, because the thought of not having her is so much worse – she keeps me smiling every day.’
Mrs Williamson, who now lives in Edinburgh with her two-year-old daughter and husband Scott, realised something was wrong about five months before she saw a doctor but had no idea that MND was a possibility – the rapidly progressing disease can cause someone to lose the ability to walk, talk, eat, drink or breathe unaided.
She said she found her devastating diagnosis ‘incredibly difficult to come to terms with’ and was ‘not sure’ she ever would. Her symptoms have progressed so that speech and making herself understood is almost impossible. Eating and swallowing is also difficult.
A great back-up system of family and friends is a huge help but so has been the practical support of MND Scotland. There is currently no cure or effective treatment for MND, a condition more than 450 people are currently living with in Scotland.
To find out more, visit mndscotland.org.uk