Dow Corning staff cover 3,000 miles in Olympic-inspired challenge (From Barry And District News)

Dow Corning staff cover 3,000 miles in Olympic-inspired challenge

4:30pm Monday 2nd July 2012 in News By Chris Seal

DOW CORNING staff ran, cycled and walked more than 3,000 miles in an Olympic-inspired charity challenge!

A total of 48 staff took part in the challenge, with the team clocking up a staggering 3496.13 miles in only three weeks. They originally set out to complete 2012km, but had to revise their target after smashing through the barrier much earlier than planned - and went on to complete an impressive 5593.81km between them.

To celebrate, they held an awards ceremony at the on-site fitness centre.

Sarah Thornhill, of the Cardio Core Fitness centre at the chemical plant, said: "When we put 2012km as our target we thought that would be quite ambitious, but they did that in about ten days - so we converted it into miles to make it more challenging.

"We want to encourage everyone to get involved in fitness and the challenge seemed a good way to do that."

Employees were encouraged to run, cycle, walk, row, swim, kayak or sail any distance and clock up their efforts in a log, with everyone's totals added together to reach the target.

Money raised from the sponsored challenge will go towards the British Paralympic Association.

Among the winners were Andrew Wellbeloved, who ran 240km, and Andrew Rowles, who cycled 952km.

"I was training for the Dragon Ride, a 125 mile cycle around Margam Mountain, so I was covering about 100 miles a week with that," said Andrew Rowles.

"But as part of the Olympic Challenge I cycled 104 miles in one day. I found it quite hard to walk the next day!"