Excellent! - excellentdevelopment.com

1:30pm Saturday 30th August, Richard, David and Paul run from the shores of Lake Bala and cross the finishing line, completing their 7 day, tri-nation Triathlon.

Between Sunday 24th and Saturday 30th August, Richard Barnes, David Barnes and Paul Mace have climbed to the top of Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon, a total of 11,168 feet, swum the length of Loch Lomond, Windermere and Lake Bala a total of 40 miles and unbelievably cycled over 400 miles inbetween. They undertook this heroic feat to raise valuable funds for our work, enabling communities in semi-arid Africa to transform their environments and their lives. Richard saw for himself how communites are achieving this through the terracing of land, building of sand dams and planting of trees, when he visited Excellent's projects last September (after completing a sponsored climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro for us). Richard says:

"Experiencing first hand Excellent Development's community led approach, and seeing for myself the work they are doing and the impact it is having made me want to find a way to raise more money, to help continue Excellent's work"

Richard knew that to raise large sums of money this sponsored challenge was going to have to be something special, something that would shock people with its daring - well it certainly did that; I think it shocked them a little too...

This challenge was always going to be incredibly difficult to meet, but it was made near impossible by that favourite of British institutions, the weather! Day after day the team were met by wind, rain and fog, water logging cameras, twisting knees, blinding them on mountains and eventually dampening spirits. But even after over 20 arduous hours smimming Loch Lomond's dark, choppy and freezing waters the Excellent Triathletes did not give up, and neither did their support team. Excellent would like to extend an enormous thanks to everyone who has been involved with the Excellent Triathlon, but especially to Peter Barnes, Jez, Jenny Barnes, Emma Owens and Excellent Employee Emily Ambrose for their mountain climbing, canoe paddling, van driving, food finding support - the guys couldn't have done it without you.

The team's job didn't quite end at the finishing line though; they had one more job to do - there was a party going on in central London, and they were the guests of honour!

The Excellent Triathlon party and its guests helped to further boost the funds raised by the Excellent Triathlon, with everyone digging deep for raffle tickets and entering into some Excellent bidding battles in the auction! Watch this space to find out just how much the Triathlon has raised so far...

Sponsor the Excellent Triathlon Team