Treverton College hosted a 24-hour Back-yard Ultra event recently, running on trails on the greater school campus to raise funds for CHOC, for children suffering from Cancer.
Jade O’ Shea, a Grade 11 scholar at Treverton College approached SBBU and Treverton to host the joint event as a fundraiser for CHOC. All parties came into an instant agreement and the go-ahead was given from SBBU to host a “Trails Edition” of their Back-yard Ultra format. The Competition was run using a tried and tested system to keep the challengers motivated through either 100km or 100 Miles (160km)
Challengers took on 4.167km for the former or 6.7km for the latter on the hour, every hour, starting at 18h00 on Friday 1st November and finishing at 18h00 on Saturday afternoon. The rules were simple: report for the start of the Spartan Call at the turn of every hour, stick to the designated trail and get back before the hour expires. Times of each challenger were recorded for each of their laps, with the fastest accumulated time being celebrated at the end of the closing ceremony. The accumulated total distance across all the challengers stood more than 1800 km, the same distance from Mooi River to Cape Town via Johannesburg.
This was the first time the SBBU allowed team entries. Seven entered from the school with four members and one with three members who collectively helped accumulate the 100km total. Only challengers under the age of 18 qualified to enter as a team. Eleven challengers entered the individual category (all of whom were over 18 years old), and one challenger took on the 160km.
SBBU set a target of R50 000 for Treverton College and the challengers to raise, a GivenGain page was set up under the close supervision of John Siokotis and Robberto Riccardo who started and have hosted SBBU events for the last 4 years.
Treverton reached and exceeded the R50,000 target and continues to receive donations. Treverton looks forward to hosting more of these types of events that stretch our learners and our community, getting them outdoors and allowing them to push themselves beyond what they thought was possible; well done to all the successful challengers, and thank you to all those who donated towards CHOC.
Education truly is an adventure.