MY 31 x 31 x 31 CHALLENGE. FUNDRAISING FOR VIVA!

July 2025

Once again I'm delivering 31 chocolate cakes throughout July - this time to 31 departments of Musgrove Park Hospital- my local hospital. I'm doing this to fundraise for Viva! again, and to help with my training for my next ultra. I chose the hospital because of my huge respect for the NHS and its workers. 

The ingredients once again are being sponsored by Lesser Litter - soo the cakes,  as well as being vegan, will be organic!

As of today, the 28th July, I've completed the task. And I'm feeling regretful that it's all over!

Here I'd like to show my appreciation to 2 NHS workers, Shazzie and Emma, who selected the wards (grouped in 3s, since I could get 3 cakes in my rucksack at a time), and guided me round what is admittedly, a maze! It was a complicated job, and they did it to perfection.

PLANT-BASED HEALTH PROFESSIONALS

Plant-based Health Professionals

OUR MISSION

We advance health through whole food plant-based nutrition and lifestyle medicine, empowering healthcare professionals and communities to prevent, manage and treat chronic disease alongside promoting planetary health.

 Sign up here

PLANT-BASED NUTRITION FOR DOGS - AND CATS

 As I'm fond of saying in my outreach spiel, when Lewis Hamilton went vegan, he put his dog, Roscoe, on a plant-based diet - and cured him of arthritis! [Which is exactly what happened to me when I gave up all animal products.] Roscoe is now a healthy, 11yr-old bulldog - which is a bit of a rarity!

But anecdotal evidence is meaningless - what's needed is science backed evidence. 

"From my published research in 2022, dogs fed a plant-based diet could live up to 18 months longer than those fed a meat-based diet."

"Evidence based published papers supporting dogs going plant-based."

And my good friend, Dr Arielle Griffiths, who is a plant-based vet, provides it:

Not just dogs - cats also benefit from plant-based nutrition

There are many recommendations on Dr Griffith's Facebook page:

MY 100 ULTRAS CHALLENGE - 2025 PROGRAMME

Link to my fundraising for this challenge: Just Giving - in favour of Viva!, which is such a wonderful charity, working as it does for the animals!

Thanks for stopping by my blog.👍

I meet and talk to lots of different people on my adventures (training, really). If we only met recently, please check out this link for Early Childhood Development and, for plant-based nutrition for dogs and cats, put 'plant-based nutrition for dogs' in the search box.

I've done all my actual ultras - as opposed to my virtual ones - through https://www.actionchallenge.com

They are a wonderful company who cannot do too much for you. Highly recommended. 

This year - 2025, I've entered 3 events again - the Bath50, London Summer Walk (again a 50k) and the 2nd half of the Thames Path challenge.

Last year I did 3 events with them:

The London Winter Walk at the end of January (accompanied by my two granddaughters and one of their boyfriends!); Easter50 Challenge; and the Thames Path100 Challenge  (continuous). Read further down to see why I feel the need to do the 2nd half of this challenge again! 🙂

Not an ultra, but during the month of July I set myself the goal of delivering 31 chocolate cakes to 31 departments of Musgrove Park Hospital in 31 days in July. As of today, the 28th July, I've completed the task. I'm doing this for several reasons - firstly, I'm fundraising for Viva! again; secondly, I love the NHS and wish to show my support for the staff: and thirdly, I need to keep up my training for my next event - The Summer Walk round London.

Here I'd like to show my appreciation to 2 NHS workers, Shazzie and Emma, who selected the wards (grouped in 3s, since I could get 3 cakes in my rucksack at a time), and guided me round what is admittedly, a maze! It was a complicated job, and they did it to perfection.

Here I try and detail all my ultra adventures - don't always succeed, as I'm not the most disciplined bloke in the world - both for my own amusement, and for anyone who is interested. I do ultra marathons for two reasons - one because they're bloody good fun, and, more importantly, they are also a means of fundraising for charities which are dear to my heart, and benefit the animals. 

I appreciate that times are hard - but these are also difficult times for charities, as I'm sure you'll appreciate. Through my ultras, I'm fundraising for Viva! who have been very active rescuing animals from Ukraine - and have an animal sanctuary in Poland. They also do sterling work exposing the horrors of animal abuse in farms and slaughterhouses. Here's a link for anyone who is in a position to donate, Wonderful * (whose services are completely free). Many, many thanks for the awesome support my efforts are receiving! And the animals thank you, also.

*If you have any trouble with this link, please email me at paulwyoud(at)gmail.com.

I have several people to whom I look for inspiration - and I found most of these on Rich Roll's podcast. Rich Roll himself, of course, is one of my heroes, being a vegan ultra runner and ironman extraordinaire. Through his podcasts I've been introduced to a whole range of endurance athletes and positive thinkers. David Goggins and Fiona Oakes, stand out - two of the most inspirational athletes around today.