The Black Vanilla All Stars Team Gets EPIC

This week Warren Mauger and Philip Smith are attempting to complete seven ironman distance triathlons in seven days as part of the FCG EPIC Week.

In case you don’t know, an ironman triathlon starts with a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile bike ride, and to finish, a 26.2 mile marathon run. The duo will repeat this route every day for seven days, totalling a massive 984.2 miles for the whole week.

They are doing this to raise money for This is EPIC and Guernsey Mind – two very worthy charities.

It’s not the first time we have supported Warren and Philip on their crazy challenges. We took care of the water and food stops one day during the 2014 seven marathons in seven days and later that year joined the first EPIC Moonlight Marathon. In 2015 we took part in the treadmill challenge and also the 2016 EPIC12 run. We’ve been very happy to support Warren and Philip and even happier that we’ve never gone to the lengths that they have!

Why have we got involved? Well, Warren is a good friend and Black Vanilla works with his film production company, Spike Productions, whenever we can. We admire Philip and Warren’s guts and dedication and we think This is EPIC does fantastic work. Their approach is about sustainable change which we believe is essential for long-term impact. We are also very keen to support Guernsey Mind; mental wellbeing isn’t something any of us can take for granted. Just like our physical health, we all know it’s important to take care of our mental health and we believe that the work Mind does locally is vital to change attitudes towards mental health.

We’re not quite as epic as Warren and Philip but in our own small way Black Vanilla is taking part in the FCG EPIC Week and we hope to raise a little money for charity along the way.

The Black Vanilla All Stars team members are – Nichole Culverwell, Jade Isabelle, Alisha Smith, Philippa Iball, Paul Chapman, Nicky Jenkins and Mike Culverwell. We’ve got a mixture of fitness levels and we’re taking on a variety of challenges – all of which will test us during the EPIC week.

Everyone is doing something different, and because of work and family commitments we will not be able to do our challenges together, but we will be sharing our highs and lows on the @BlackVanillaLtd Twitter feed.

Jade is just getting back to fitness after a period off to have her beautiful little girl Arlette. She has just got a brand new bike and even though she is a cycling novice she will be pedalling every day for this great cause.

Nichole enjoys sea swimming and is using the EPIC Week to step up the amount she swims each week and become more consistent with longer distances. She will attempt to swim 1km each day, but she knows that this distance will really challenge her strength and managing it within her busy schedule will also be hard.

Philippa has set herself the challenge to run 5km each day during EPIC week. She has been putting off doing a regular run and believes that there will be no better way of getting into the habit of running than joining the Black Vanilla All Stars EPIC team.

Alisha is the office gym bunny and she will also be taking on a daily 5km run. While she is gym fit, she knows that five consecutive runs won’t be easy!

Nicky is also hoping to do 1km  sea swim each day although she knows that she will have to take a few stops on the way to that distance. She has only recently started sea swimming and has faced a lot of fears already, and continues to each time she gets in the water. So, the thought of challenging herself to stay in and swim for 1km is way out of her comfort zone! She would rather the challenge was to do seven hours of yoga a day for seven days but as this challenge is for her favourite charity, Guernsey Mind, she is determined to brave it!

Mike is going to undertake a mix of disciplines and plans to alternate his days with a 1km pool swim with running 10km. He’ll be using his lunch hour to fit in the exercise around work and family commitments.

Paul is going to run a massive 10 miles each day. He is a regular runner and recently smashed out a great time in the Father’s Day Half Marathon, but while he would normally do a long run once a week doing this distance every day is going to be hard. The heat and his dodgy knees are also a worry…

Wish us luck and sponsor us here:

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