Ex-Rugby Players Completes Incredible 737 Challenge.
What have you done in the past seven months? Whatever it is, we’re fairly sure it will fade into the background compared to watch ex Welsh international rugby player Richard Parks has achieved. Personally, his last seven months’ worth of effort comfortably eclipses everything I’ve done with my life. The 737 challenge involved Richard climbing the highest peaks on each continent, as well as traveling to three poles , all inside that time period of seven months. Richard completed his challenge on the 12th of July 2011, by summiting the highest peak in Europe, Russia’s 5,642m Mount Elbus, and quipping from the top that he doesn’t believe he has another mountain in him ‘for another couple of months’. If we were him, we’d be putting our feet up for at least the rest of the year. The total time he spent completing the challenge was 6 months, 11 days. 7 hours and 53 minutes.
Richard’s challenge is in aid of Marie Curie cancer care, a charity which he said is close to his own family’s heart, with a fundraising target of an impressive £1 million. As a former international rugby player, Richard was clearly already in great physical shape, but his challenge also demonstrates that almost anyone can push themselves to a physical limit if they put their heart and soul into it. Just 30 months ago, Richard had never climbed a mountain of any notable size. While he completed his challenge with the help of numerous sports professionals, he was able to learn all the skills necessary and train at enough altitude over the 18 months training he put in before the challenge to ensure that he succeeded in climbing some real monsters, and dragging himself across the snow to both the north and south extremities.
Of course, Everest seemed like the obvious potential stumbling block. The world’s highest peak is notoriously difficult to climb if only for the weather disruption , and relatively, standard backpacker challenges like Kilimanjaro are a bit of a walk in the park. Richard came down the mountain with grade 2 frostbite on a big toe, and had to be helicoptered from Everest base camp to recover, and was at risk of losing his big toe for some time. Despite Everest being the 7th of his 9 destinations, Richard still went on to complete the challenge. Not putting Everest first was a respectable enough gamble in its own right: having completed two poles and four major peaks, Richard must have felt that his biggest challenge still lay ahead of him even at a fairly late stage.
Having completed his challenge six and a half months after his first landmark very early this year, Richard moved from absolute mountaineering amateur to the first person ever to summit all seven peaks and reach the two extremities all inside a single calendar year. In Antarctica his expedition nearly faltered due to fuel strikes. On Denali, Richard fell 7 metres down a crevice and nearly lost not only the challenge, but his life. The challenge has left him absolutely penniless, despite having corporate sponsors, a professional rugby player’s earnings and media support behind him. It’s an inspiring story, that you can read plenty more about here. It just goes to show that – having retired from the sport in 2009 due to a serious shoulder injury – it’s never too late to chase the most ambitious of dreams. Get planning!
Everest photos by apuderm.
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