THE LONG PUSH 2012 - Longboarding for Autism Awareness

[Chris W]

THE LONG PUSH 2012 takes place THIS weekend!

That's right people, 9 months of training, planning, preparation, promotion, pestering people on message boards and...falling off all come to a head this weekend, when I set off on my first fully long distance skate journey, the 100 mile round trip to Fleetwood and back, while Southport Air Show is on and I'm gonna get freaked out by low flying jets over my head along the coastline!!

I was doing some late maintenance on the board on Sunday and you can read more about that and the other recent posts on the blog at The Long Push 2012

As I'm at 3 days and counting down, I'm posting a blog post (or two) a day from now until the weekend, and Facebook updates even more at https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-L...03916856296557, so please keep checking back.

Check the following posts:

'Monthly Vital Statistics - August' tells how the charity fund has grown to a massive £2288!!!
http://thelongpush.blogspot.co.uk/20...cs-august.html

'Standby For Action' details the start of the countdown and tells the full story of Parkside Courts' amazing £350 (or more) donation to The Long push/Families Connected By Autism
http://thelongpush.blogspot.co.uk/20...nd-by-for.html

While 'Muscle and Blood' (apart from being stolen from a Hughes/Thrall song title) tells more about my recovery from a fall in Blackpool a month ago, and some more donation news.
http://thelongpush.blogspot.co.uk/20...-recovery.html

Thank you so much to all at Sidewalk who have donated or supported The Long Push for Autism Awareness this year, and those who have offered advice, Mr.Jim on Longboard, Chris White, Allyn Charpentier and of course, Nat Halliday and Marion Karr at Skatefurther and especially Laura Hatwell, for selling a set of her Seismic wheels and donating the money for The Long Push charity fund. The support from Skatefurther has been awesome and I feel I have been truly welcomed into the distance skating community. I look forward to doing some miles with some of the guys in the coming years, if my knees hold up???

And of course, thanks as ever, to THE LONG PUSH 2012 sponsors, www.bigwoodys.co.uk www.uk.dcshoes-store.com www.sporting-sails.com www.orangatangwheels.com www.jandrsports.co.uk

The guys at Middle-Age-Shred have been typically supprting as ever. It really is a great community to be part of and I have to thank all who have offered support and made donations, especially Woody and Dre who have been absolutely amazingly supportive this year, Mark Robinson who supplied me with The Long Push T-shirts and high viz vests and all who contributed draft logos for The Long Push. The final version used was one of Woody's , following The North Face's lack of co-operation. And also thanks to Twellsy who, apart from taking some amazing photos recently, has agreed to follow me the journey on his bike and document it for me. Thanks dude.

Hopefully I'll be featured in the local press over the next week or two and if anyone reading this here sees me on the road over the weekend give me a wave or a beep of your horn and remember, you can still make a donation of any amount at all at http://www.justgiving.com/TheLongPush

[Chris W]

'AUTISM AWARENESS' wristbands in both adult and child sizes are currently available exclusively* at BIG WOODY's SKATESHOP on Talbot Road in Blackpool, with all profits going to THE LONG PUSH 2012/FAMILIES CONNECTED BY AUTISM.

Minimum donation of £1

I will also have some of these with me as I push the 100 mile journey this weekend, but the adult size ones are going fast. I'll be picking up what's left at Big Woody's on Saturday on the way through, to sell on the way back. Whatever's left at the end I'll make available to anyone who wants one...somehow! I haven't really thought that through yet!

Here you can see them modeled on my very own, very hairy arm! What a sales technique!

[Chris W]

Hopefully by now you know that I completed The Long Push 2012 - Longboarding for Autism Awareness at about 9.45pm on Sunday 9th September! A new personal best distance for a single day skated on the second day of 59 miles and 100 miles in total over the weekend. Thanks to everyone who has donated and supported me this year and those who followed my journey on Facebook and Twitter over the weekend.

A few days of recovery time (before I go back to work!) and then I'll start chasing up the last sponsor money and bringing the fundraising element of The Long Push 2012 to a close.

The current total of the charity fund stands at an amazing £2443.66 and looks set to hopefully go over £3000!!!

The Just Giving page will be winding up soon too. Full details when I have them, but for now there's still time to donate for anyone who wishes to:

http://www.justgiving.com/TheLongPush

I'll get on to writing up full blog posts of the journey as soon as I can. Time to start getting my house back in order after all the focus on The Long Push.

Photos from the two days are going up on the Facebook page as and when I get them. If you want to have a look you will find them here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... tif_t=like

Here I am at my furthest point out from home, the Ferryside Cafe at Fleetwood.

[Chris W]

Ladies and gents, apologies for the late posting of this here on Sidewalk, due to illness and generally life getting in the way, but here it is, the FINAL TOTAL raised by The Long Push 2012 - Longboarding for Autism Awareness....



£3154.35

Wow! No idea how I managed to raise so much on this, my first charity distance longboard journey, but...I did, and it's all thanks to everyone who donated a single penny or shared a link etc. I've strated writing a more extensive 'Thank You' post for the blog, which will be on in a few days, but for now I want to thank as many people by name on here as I can. So huge thanks to everyone, but especially the following indviduals and businesses....

Woody and Dre at Big Woodys, Leo at DC Shoes, DC SHOES Europe. DC Shoes United Kingdom Kyle Chin at Orangatang Wheels, Richard Birchwood at J&R Sports, Nick and Billy Smith at SPORTING-SAILS, Nat Halliday, Laura Hatwell, Marion Karr and all at Skatefurther, Mark Robinson, Chris White at The Skaatsplank Chronicles, Jim Petterson - MrJim on Longboard, Allyn Charpentier, Nikki Skinner and Nationwide Building Society, Mr. Sheeran, Camille Hayward and the staff and pupils at Birkdale High School, Pat and Brian Froggatt, Gill St. Claire, Paul and his wife and all the residents at Parkside Court in Southport, not to mention all the businesses who gave prizes for the two fundraisers there, Trev Wells and Abi Rix for photography services and for Trev accompanying me on day 1 of the journey, the guys at Skateport Southport, for support along the way, The Southport Visiter, Southport Champion and Blackpool Gazette for all publishing articles on the journey, Carol and Laura at the charity Families Connected by Autism, Thom Bleasedale at Thom bleasdale Art (I don't know why FB has stopped putting links into this post now! Sorry to those affected by it), Southport Lions Club, the guys at Longboarding for Cancer (Sweden), Martyn and Karen Oliver.

Apologies to anyone I've missed for now. I'll try to amend any ommission on the blog.

Finally, I have to say a huge thanks to my beautiful, skateboard widow girlfriend, the mysterious 'Rachael', without whom, none of this would have had any reason. Love you.

The bar has been set very high for 2013, but plans are afoot. Please ignore the 2012 in the titles of the page (as Facebook wont let me change it! Grrrrr!) and stick with me thru another journey in 2013.

THANK YOU