Four Kent students went the extra mile this week to raise over £1200 for Sport Relief by taking part in a gruelling triathlon.

The quartet clocked up 51 miles each as they ran, cycled and then finally swam, all in one day to do their bit for charity.

Brad Hewitt, Toby Hull, Danny Hewitt and Alex Brown are all Sixth form students at Sir Joseph Williamson’s Mathematical School and Brad explained the reason behind doing the triathlon:   “In 2010, the school raised 28k for sport relief, which was a huge total. This gained high recognition at sport relief HQ and led to John Bishop taking a 3 mile diversion from one of his mammoth runs during his week of hell to come along to our school to personally congratulate us, where he was joined by Chris Moyles and Frank Skinner.”

“Seeing what Bish had done made the 4 of us want to do something. After a few ideas were suggested we, rather foolishly, came up with the idea of doing a triathlon, which would be a run to Priestfield Stadium and back (12 miles), a cycle to Leeds Castle and back (38 miles) (both of these starting from Alex’s house  near Strood Fire Station) and then a 1 mile swim.

“Training began only 3 weeks before the event and, to be honest, we did not do enough and we can feel that now! Wednesday night and we were all really looking forward to it but also nervous at the same time.”   “The run began at 7:30 the following morning when we started the 12 mile return run to Priestfield. We made good time on this run, finishing it in under 3 hours, which included a break at Priestfield and 1 stop on each way as we passed my Mum’s workplace.”

“We arrived back at Alex’s house in a fairly good state and raring to go for the cycle, which was to begin at 11:30. We used our extended break to stock up on pasta, bananas, water etc. The cycle began, with Alex on a BMX, fairly well before Toby got a puncture about 2 miles in to the route.”

“Thankfully, we had taken a puncture repair kit with us and Alex managed to fix the puncture. We carried on to Leeds Castle, but first we stopped at the White Horse pub in Bearsted, where our ICT teacher Mr Loizou had kindly agreed to meet us and give us a bit of extra support.”

“When we arrived at the castle, it would be fair to say we were all in a fairly good state again and the people who worked there allowed us to get a picture outside the castle to prove that we had actually made it there. So far so good. But on the way back, it started to hit us.”

“We all began to struggle on the way back with the uphills causing us considerable problems and we had to push our bikes up there, there certainly didn’t seem to be that many hills on the way down! All of us except Danny, who seemed to find energy from absolutely nowhere and ended up waiting for us several times!”

“We looked for support on Facebook and Twitter and the messages we received really spurred us on and we seemed to find that energy we needed and got going again. The cycle back however included the dreaded Boxley Hill, which had a 17% gradient. Going down it was fun, but going up it certainly wasn’t, we were even struggling to push the bikes up there.”

“Although we had lost a fair amount of time on the way back, we all made it to Strood Sports Centre eventually just after 6:00, where we prepared for our final leg, the swim. It was 64 lengths to swim a mile, so we opted to do the mile between us, 16 lengths each.”

“At the sports centre we were met by our family and friends, all of whom were there to cheer us on in the final push. Cramp really started to set in during the swim, particularly for Toby and myself but we all swam 15 lengths before exiting the pool and diving back in to complete the final length together.”

“We had done it, in total a 51 mile triathlon all in aid of sport relief. The feeling was great and it was certainly a day we will never forget. However, the feeling the next day physically was not so great, with us all feeling it and struggling to walk!”

“It takes more than that for me to miss the Gills though, the coach journey to Bristol however did give me a considerable chance just to relax and reflect on what, for us is such a great achievement.”   “Currently we have raised about £1200 between us. My personal target is £500 and I have nearly reached that, but it would be great if you could visit my link, http://my.sportrelief.com/sponsor/bradhewitt , to try and help me hit that target.”   “We would also like to thank everyone for their amazing support, which really was greatly appreciated and gave us the extra motivation we needed.”