Midlands Kickboxing Student tackles the Great Wall of China. | 1st December | posted by Midlands Kickboxing
Midlands Kickboxing student Sharron Clay has recently returned from Northern China, after completing a gruelling 300 mile hike along The Great Wall Of China. Here is Sharron’s take on the events. “I trekked the Great Wall of China in October this year to raise funds for the NSPCC & British Heart Foundation
The wall stretches 6000km in a dotted line across China. Parts of the Great Wall were first built by princes and overlords in the Seventh Century BC as regional border defences when China was divided into many small states. As it snakes across the mountains it conjures up a sense of history which is difficult to grasp until you have had the opportunity to experience it. My trek took me through a varied terrain. I passed through woodland and terraced farmland, and followed the contours of the beautiful hills and mountains in remote areas north of Beijing. I followed old sections of the Great Wall, as well as restored sections with smooth flagstones and lots and lots of steps!!! This challenge was extremely physically demanding because of the terrain and lack of accurate maps, it’s impossible to give accurate daily distances, but it is estimated that we walked around 300 miles in 11 days, trekking for 9 - 10 hours a day. To put that in context our guide says it was the equivalent to climbing up and down Mt Snowdon two and half times a day. Due to my knee injury before the trek, I was not a fit as I had hoped to be. But even with my kickboxing training, nothing could have prepared me for this amazing challenge. It was an extremely tough experience, in which stubbornness was the only thing to get me through, but that was what made it so worthwhile and memorable. In total I raised a total of £6159. This was achieved doing various activities such as car boot sales, supermarket collections, murder mystery, Halloween party, raffles, cake sales and sponsorship for this amazing adventure.” Everyone connected with Midlands Kickboxing from the staff through to the students would like to say a big congratulations to Sharron for her fantastic efforts.
