Things are ramping up a little bit now. The JustGiving fundraising page is live, I’m starting to look at programming for the workouts and have made a few enquiries with local businesses to ask for support. The thing I’m struggling with the most is promoting myself. Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you how terrible I am at acknowledging my strengths and downplaying my achievements (that section of your appraisal you have to write yourself – just painful!), so trying to ‘put myself out there’ is proving very challenging in itself. I set up a public Instagram account in order to engage with people, businesses and potential supporters for the event and it feels like it’s going quite well so far. However, I’d say that about 75% of the posts I do result in me totally over-stressing about whether they’re boring, stupid or both and when it comes to posting pictures and videos of myself, the self-criticism reaches another level. Social media is by far the best way to reach a wider audience though, so I’m just going to have to get used to it and hey, maybe making an idiot of myself might get a sympathy donation?

After putting together a flyer about my event to distribute in the community, I asked my colleagues for some feedback. Self-promotion (lack of) was the response. I’m so caught up in finding ways to get support and fundraise for the charity that I’m forgetting to tell people that what I’m taking on is nothing short of crazy and that if I’m going to put myself through this challenge, I really ought to be shouting about it! Fortunately, my colleagues are not only honest but also completely fabulous and I’m lucky to be able to call on them for help and advice throughout this process. The flyer is now ready but rewriting it definitely reminded me that teamwork is going to be key to the success of this challenge, from beginning to end.

Training at the gym is going really well. I’ve learned so much from the coaches in the seven weeks since I joined and the other members have made me feel really welcome. I certainly won’t be winning any competitions in the near future but I’ve started to master a few skills and even achieved a couple of PB’s along the way. I’m trying to attend a variety of classes to practice all the different elements of Crossfit (sometimes tricky when working around my husband’s shifts, my work commitments and family life) and with a few months still to go, I’m fairly confident I’ll be ready to face the 24 workouts, despite the nerves and trepidation that will be ever-present until the those 24 hours are over!

There’s still a lot of planning and work to be done and I doubt that my anxieties or ongoing mental chatter around this challenge will be easing off any time soon. But, with the amazing support of my family, friends and colleagues, as long as I give this everything that I can to achieve my goal and fundraise for the fantastic charity I work for, then it will all be worth it. Not only that, the personal achievements I have gained in the gym, the contacts I am making for the charity and the opportunity to bring our community together for what should be a pretty awesome event makes me feel really proud of how far I’ve come already. Hang on… did I just give myself some credit there?!

If you’re enjoying my blog posts, I’d be really grateful if you could support my challenge. Find out more at www.justgiving.com/fundraise/plantgirl Thank you.