We’re back and it’s about to get messy…

If someone said to you ‘running’, ‘mud’, and ‘September’ you’d probably imagine a series of very unfortunate events on an unlucky autumn morning. Rarely would anyone associate a combination of those words with an event that hundreds of people willingly sign up for. Well, sign up we did, and we are now 10 days away from the start line of a mud run/obstacle course where climbing, crawling and falling face-first into pits of mud are a certainty.

We’ve been quiet on the fundraising front this year so we figured the best way to get back into it was in the messiest way possible, and to make it even harder for ourselves, we have somehow neglected any sort of physical preparation and therefore not looking forward to the aftermath of our bodies after the event.

    

Maria started skateboarding 6 months ago.
Stellar Idea.

Although Maria has been medically advised to not participate due to a recent knee injury [this is what happens when she attempts hip young hobbies!] she will try to give it a go and test what she's made of.

Us able bodied participants - Noni and myself along with brother Louis are planning to go at it full throttle. The course advertises 60 obstacles over 10 km so this is going to be a huge challenge. Personally, I am predicting exhaustion after wading through the first five mud pits, but I will endeavour to get to the end, even if it takes me all day!  

While we’re definitely hoping to enjoy ourselves, we are also doing this for a great cause; to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust. Last time we ran our series of challenges the amount of donations we received was amazing and overwhelming!  We smashed the £1,000 target and would like to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who showed their support. You all rock! <3





Since there are 4 of us (technically 3 1/2 considering Maria's limp), we thought a £400 target would be a great goal. If you feel you could support our muddy adventure, you can donate via our JustGiving page. We appreciate your support beyond measure. You can donate per obstacle you think we will surpass, or give us targets we have to reach (be gentle). It’s up to you, but please help us to raise money for a cause that is so very close to our hearts, and we will continue to challenge ourselves and the bully that is Cystic Fibrosis.


Love and thanks,

Georgie, Maria, Noni (& Louis)

Support us here : https://www.justgiving.com/Maria-Nu/

Double Challenge July: Check!

July is all about colourful running and vertical drops

There’s nothing like the height of summer to challenge yourself a little extra so that’s what we did. DOUBLE CHALLENGES! Plus an extra surprise which made July a triple whammy! Read on and see what July had in store for us…

First thing's first, Maria and I participated in our second crazy themed 5k run, the COLOUR RUN in Manchester. I think we were slightly more excited for this one because we had such an ace time with the Electric Run, also, what could possibly be more fun than being pelted with colour powder at various checkpoints?!

As you can see, it got pretty messy. Props to both of us for not stopping at all, hooray for improvement (on my part, Maria can run forever anyway).

 

 

 
 

It seems we’ve started a tradition of immediately following a 5k with a second challenge, like the following day immediate! Breaks are for schmucks.

Sunday morning found Maria and I arriving at Aston Villa Football Stadium feeling more than a little anxious because we were about to embark upon a 100ft freefall abseil, as in SUSPENDED IN MID AIR BY ONE ROPE! Feel free to start calling us brave right about now.

 

 

As someone who is fully intending to jump out of a plane (date pending) climbing to a walkway 100ft up shouldn’t have been an issue for me, but man, do I hate climbing ladders! It was actually the hardest part. Maria was of course the fearless leader, striding toward the abseil instructor with zero hesitation. Needless to say, we both aced the abseil, descending with much grace and finesse as you can see from these pictures:

 

 

All in all it was a pretty perfect weekend, the only thing missing was Noni who was unfortunately unable to join us (heights - gross) and to top it off we actually exceeded our initial donations target of £1000!!!!!! Can you believe it?! Keep the donations coming, we want to hit the target out of the park! 

Thank you so so so so much to everyone who has donated so far and supported us on every single one of our challenges, we’re only half way through since the intention has always been to keep going until December. There are plenty of fun/tough events coming up so stick around, see what’s coming up next and keep donating for a great cause!

Much love,
Georgie, Maria and Noni

Support us here : http://www.justgiving.com/NutaMaria

June Family Challenge: Check!

 Treetop Trails, Harnesses and Ziplines - Family edition
 

 

 

With June now behind us and two exciting new challenges on the horizon for July - the time is perfect to share an update on where we are so far with our CF fundraising and how we got on in Romania a few weeks ago when we bound together to challenge CF - adventure park style!

 

 

Unfortunately, Georgie couldn't join us for this one but we  more than made up the numbers with Silvan, Ina, Debbie, Eddie, Isaac, Eva and special guest Radu who climbed his heart out and took some fantastic pictures of the whole shebang. Radu is our family's photographer of choice and a great friend - if you're inclined please stop by his page and check out his amazing work.  

 

 

We chose Arka Park for our family challenge since it's a relatively short drive from Sibiu, has trails of various difficulties to allow for the kiddos' different levels of ability and there are plenty of ziplines around for when you are too tired to pull yourself from tree to tree.

 

Note to self - bring more arm strength next time!

 

 

We had an action packed day at the park - got geared up straight away and did the mandatory training (safety first!) before broaching the trails spread across the woods.

 

Although the start was relatively easy to get into the swing of things -  I'm happy to say that after completing the Green and Blue trails  - Radu, Debbie and I manned up and took the Black trail head on! Sure, I inadvertently did the splits whilst holding on to suspended planks a few times and got some nice nostalgic rope burs in the process - but it was definitely worth it. The sense of achievement we got at the end was immense and to be able to say that we did it as a family is a tremendous added bonus.

 



People have been so supportive of our efforts so far and we are delighted to say that we are now 91% of the way there in reaching our £1000 target! It is inspiring to have people rooting for us and encouraging us with donations, spreading awareness and being generally lovely since the onset of our fundraising journey.

There are still plenty of challenges in the pipeline though and there's no stopping us now! We will definitely push harder and up the target once we hit the £1000 mark, so please continue to give generously and sponsor us in the months to come.  Next up on our list is the Color Run in Manchester, followed by a 100ft Abseil at Aston Villa the very next day! Georgie's skydive is also in the works as well as a Snowdon climb and many more, so stay tuned for our next adventures!

Much love,
Maria, Noni and Georgie

Support us here : http://www.justgiving.com/NutaMaria

CF Awarness Month Part II: Epic Baking

It is with great relief that we can now say - CF Bake Sale: Check!!

 

Since May was CF awareness month, we thought it would be a good idea to double up on challenges by accompanying the Electric Run with a bake sale of EPIC proportions. It is well-known fact that fitness and cake make the perfect combination.

 

 

 

We figured Keele would be the best place to sell our baked goods, taking advantage of the hungry, hungry students. We only had a couple of days to choose from to catch the students on campus, sandwiched between their month long break in April and their 3 month summer starting in June. Instead of spreading out the challenges this month like a sane person might do, we thought the best idea would be to hold the bake sale 2 DAYS after our soaked 5k. #crazybakesunday

After spending a solid 12 hours re-painting the kitchen with flour, chocolate and icing we had successfully baked 7 different cakes/cupcakes/pretzel rolls. In addition to our own, several of Maria’s lovely colleagues contributed with their masterpieces  - the sweet tooths of Keele had no idea what was going to hit them!

The bake marathon was really productive and between our cakes and the ones so kindly brought in by our bake volunteers, we managed to put on a rather impressive spread:

Berry Cheesecake, Upside-down Pinapple Cake, Cinnamon Rolls, Chocolate-soaked Tavalite, Devil's Food Cake, S'more Cupcakes, White Chocolate and Raspberry Cake, Pizza Pretzels, Lemon Drizzle Cake, Coffee Cake, Chocolate Orange Cake, Flapjacks and Brownies !!!

 

 

 

 
 

 

Overall the sale was a triumph - our epic bake sale raised a staggering £321.20 - which has helped us raise 64% of our £1000 total.

Special thanks go to:

• Kaneatron who commissioned a special Kaneatron branded cake and sold pieces to friends and family, donating twice. They even mentioned us on their blog!!http://kaneatron.com/blog/challenging-cystic-fibrosis-with-kaneatron-cake/

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
• The Keele marketing team, who were on their away day, for tweeting us and asking us to bring a tray of cake over.
• Our friend Fred, one of the marketing managers at bet365 who offered to buy all of the leftover cakes at the end of the sale, donating an amazing £50.

Keep your eyes peeled for our upcoming June challenge all the way from Romania (sans Georgie, she’ll jump out of a plane to make up for missing this one) - it’s gonna be a huge family event and we're really excited for Silvan to join in. Prepare for some monkey behaviour since we're going to be completing a treetop trail!

 

Please continue to support us, we need your help to smash the target!

 

Much love,

Georgie, Maria and Noni

Support us here : http://www.justgiving.com/NutaMaria

Running in the Rain: Check!

CF Awareness month, glowing in the dark and epic baking

 

 

May is Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Month so we decided to double up on our challenges and kicked this month off with an electrified run at the Ethiad Stadium in Manchester. Our friend Sandra helped us with this challenge so the four of us geared up for our 5k on Saturday.

Now you may be thinking, 5k isn't a big deal - not compared to a marathon anyway. You'd be right in thinking it isn't necessarily a big deal for some people - Sandra for instance breezed through it. For us on the other hand, as non-running people it was a pretty big deal, especially considering we did it in the pouring rain!

 

Said pouring rain

Drenched isn't the only special attribute we were sporting on Saturday though, as this was no ordinary run but an electric one - meaning we covered ourselves with all manner of UV paint and glow sticks and ran in the dark! I've shared some pictures below as this was quite a feast for the eyes.

 

We are so glad that we managed to complete the run with the first wave of runners and in such high spirits as well. Definitely couldn't have done it with out the knowledge that there are lovely people cheering us on and supporting our efforts of #challengingCF !

 

Much love,

Maria, Noni and Georgie (& Sandra)

 

Ps. Look out for our next update on May challenge number 2 - Epic Bake Sale @ Keele

 

Support us here : http://www.justgiving.com/NutaMaria

Indoor Skydiving: Check!

Before I tell everyone about what we have planned for our next Challenge - I wanted to post a quick update on the most exciting thing we've done yet! If you’ve read through our last post you’ll know we went indoor skydiving at the end of March. It all went down at Airkix in Manchester and it was amazing and 'hairtanglingly' extreme! I won't lie, it's not exactly comforting when the only thing separating you from the bottom of a huge wind tunnel is some wire mesh - but we manned up and did it! Debbie didn't just do it, she knocked it out of the park and put us to shame - proof below:

The great thing is that last month we had strength in numbers with Debbie joining us for both our challenges. As the sportiest of the Nuta sisters she was of course a natural and took to flight immediately, Georgie held her own as well while Noni and I were ….well let’s just say we were less graceful. We’ve got video of the whole experience that is guaranteed to yield some laughs but for now here’s a snap of our ‘after’ faces :)

We are feeling so inspired by the support we’ve received for our first 3 challenges so far and are delighted to say we’re nearly a quarter of the way to meeting our £1000 fundraising target! Massive thanks to everyone who has supported us so far and for those of you waiting for a big challenge to sponsor we’ve got Georgie’s skydive coming up, as well as a Snowdon trek, a huge bake sale and a facepainting challenge among other things -  so stay tuned and please cheer us on in the months to come!

For anyone who wants to laugh at our flying technique - enjoy the videos below:

Georgie in all her glory:

Noni conquering her fears:

Me - as 'the spread eagle':

Much love,
Maria, Noni, Georgie (and Debbie!)

Support us here : http://www.justgiving.com/NutaMaria