By now you no doubt realise that Xcite Digital is a digital marketing company with a difference! We are not afraid of creative marketing ideas and are always willing to try something new! It is with this carpe diem attitude that back in July Rob and Emily agreed to go to Las Vegas this November to participate in an event called The World’s Toughest Mudder (WTM). Rob has done the event before and somehow managed to persuade Emily to sign up before she realised what it actually was!
WTM is an extreme competition featuring a gruelling 24-hour obstacle challenge. It consists of a 5 mile per lap course with an obstacle every mile, such as high walls, mud swamps, pipes to crawl through, ice pits…even electric shocks have been rumoured!! The aim of WTM is to do as many laps as you can in 24 hours. Yes, you read that right!! There are three official categories designed to find the toughest man, woman, and 4, person team on the planet with cash prizes and other awards up for grabs, including an award for the largest World’s Toughest Mudder team.
After coming back from Glastonbury it started to dawn on us that we literally had 4 months until WTM. This meant a transition from no exercise at all to coping with a 24 hour endurance event in 16 weeks!
However, on the evening of Wednesday 30th July this daunting prospect paled into insignificance. We received a message from one of our closest and very best friends, a message that was to change everything, in one split second. Our dear friend Anna Buszka had died suddenly and unexpectedly, at the age of only 32. We had spent a lovely day with Anna and her wonderful partner Dave only two days earlier. We knew she was unwell and had been having various tests but could not have anticipated that we would never see her again.
It turns out that Anna had been suffering from a disease called Pulmonary Hypertension (PH). No, we hadn’t heard of it either! But it is a serious condition that affects a lot of people throughout the world. One of the things that The Pulmonary Hypertension Association (PHA) desperately needs – like any other charity and/or research institute – is funding. Funding to stop more angels falling and more hearts breaking.
We therefore decided to dedicate our participation in WTM to Anna. We are now training hard for the event. We do not anticipate winning but in this case it really is the taking part that matters. We are doing it for Anna, and her widowed husband Dave is coming along for support. We want to raise as much money as we can for the PHA. Fund raising will not bring Anna back, but may prevent others going through the same suffering and heartbreak as Anna and Dave.
We will give regular updates on this blog as to how we are getting on and will, of course, report back on the event itself in due course. Meanwhile we would really appreciate any sponsorship you are willing to give towards the PHA. You can sponsor us at our JustGiving page here. Thanks in anticipation!
