JBA 1000k in May

At the start of this month, our Managing Director – Ashley Buckland – came up with a way to keep up team morale (from a social distance), stay fit & healthy and raise money for charity. He set us the task of seeing how many collective kilometres we can run, walk and cycle throughout May.

After a few (ostensibly optimistic) calculations, we agreed on a target of travelling 1000k across The New Forest in the four allocated weeks. We would keep track via a team WhatsApp group, in which we post various encouragements, screenshots of our distances and post-run selfies.

By the end of Week One, we had reached 200 kilometres and began to feel confident that we would reach our target, if not smash it entirely! At this point, we had also started to receive some generous donations from colleagues, clients, friends and family that helped keep us motivated to walk/run/cycle even further than we had first thought we could.

As Week Two came to a close and we were celebrating the halfway mark, we had already traveled 800 kilometres collectively on foot or by bike. Ashley realised that 1000k was far too lenient and upped our target to 1500k by the end of May.

Now, with government lock-down restrictions easing, we are finding more time to get out running, walking and cycling and our competitive sides are certainly showing. Our biggest contribution so far has been Adam Vibert’s impressive 70 kilometre bike-ride last weekend, but as the challenge continues and the good weather looks set to stay, we are all hoping to beat our personal bests and thrash our new target.

The JBA 1000k In May is also our way of raising money for the local NHS – Southampton Hospital Charity & NHS Heroes. A massive thanks to all those that have already donated, we have now reached an impressive £370 and we are hoping for even more donations over the final two weeks of the challenge.

To show our support to the key workers that are keeping us safe during this time, we have also recently commissioned some brand-new site banners. Thanks to Sign It for the fantastic design, we love it!