Thanks everyone for the donations, the run was a success. Well as much of a success as it could be when the first 2kms were more a hike than a run ;-)
I'm really grateful for the donations and all the support. Video linked below and images of the day up in the gallery.
Hi all, thanks for the donations so far, it's been amazing.
Today is the day, the gear is ready to go and I'm starting to get nervous.
This donation link will stay open for a week after the race so please share it around and let's see how many more donations we can get in
Hi All,
Apologies for the lack of updates, I have been super busy with training (both for the run and our actual team training) but we are in the final countdown now, the run is Sunday.
During this period my training has continued and we have been put through some very educational exercises as a MIST team including one out at the airport. Check out the gallery for pictures of us in action at that.
The push is really on now to get as many donations as possible before Sunday. I'd love to get to $2000 but I'd be happy to get over the $1000 mark. Thanks so much to those of you who have donated so far, could I ask you to spend the next two days spreading this page far and wide?
For anyone who wants to come and support me on the run, it's Sunday afternoon at the CHCH Adventure Park.
This past weekend the MIST team took all our gear out to Rolleston for some familiarization training.
The amazing volunteers in this team give up at least one evening and one full weekend day every month to train. We do this so that when we are called out we are able to provide the best possible assistance to the St John clinical teams.
This particular training was all about getting hands on with the gear we roll out with, putting up the emergency tents, unloading the cache vans and scoping out what's in all the storage boxes.
Hi All,
Apologies for the lack of updates, this doesn't mean training has stopped it just means I got so caught up in training that time for updating hasn't quite happened.
Since I introduced my training partner at the start of this and then explained about her injury, I thought it was time I gave an update on her status too (this is another reason my updates have been a bit few and far between, she's the more photogenic of the two of us).
It turns out Rogue's limping was caused by a ruptured cruciate ligament.
Since that update she has had successful surgery and is now in full rehab mode. Unfortunately it means I will be without her company for the rest of my training but she it very much on the road to recovery and I'm looking forward to getting her out on more gentle outings in the near future.
Huge thanks to K9HQ for not only being amazing people but for the most epic cast they sent her home with
Well, this isn't quite the "training is going well" update I thought I would be posting but it's far more informative about what we do and why we are fundraising.
At 7:30 Sunday morning 6 members of our team rolled out of bed and into town, picked up our vehicles and gear and headed our way down to Ashburton to assist in any way required during the flooding.
Taking Command One (mobile communications centre), MIST One (Supplies/MCI Van) and Support One (Staff welfare campervan) we set up post at Tinwald school to be on hand in case Tinwald was shut off from Ashburton. Little did we know it would be, just a tad after we expected . . .
After the closing of the Ashburton bridge we set up beside the Medical Centre to provide logistics, restocking, communication and welfare support for not only our teams but also any other organizations requiring it in town. If you head to the gallery section of this page you will see some good shots of the setup, including a chopper landing on the main street of Tinwald to pick up a patient.
Relief arrived in the form of our second deployment on Tuesday night meaning some very tired volunteers made their way home ready to resume their "normal" lives on Wednesday.
The locals were all super friendly, accommodating and grateful to have us there. Special shoutout to the school for housing us, Cafe Time for providing 24/7 access to their toilets for our crews, Specialized Structures for moving their gear and loaning us their warehouse/garage space, Ashburton Toyota for loaning us a Hilux when we were short some transport, Tinwald Medical for letting us borrow your rooms and Asure Adcroft for housing us and being so friendly and accommodating.
As I have mentioned before, we are all volunteers, there are a lot of businesses who released their staff to be part of this deployment. Shoutouts to them will come in later updates
I had a great, in uniform, training run up Godley Head this weekend. The sign at the bottom said 1hr 45mins each way, I made the return trip in 1hr 30, including a slow walk back chatting to a lovely guy full of questions about what I was up to and why.
Unfortunately my training partner Rogue has done some serious damage to one of her back legs so it looks like I will be training solo for the remainder of our training sessions. The sad eyes as I head out the door without her are almost worse than all the training.
The full MIST team has a some operational trainings coming up as well as a sneak peak at some of our new trucks, I'll post more on that at they happen
This morning was our first training outing in the gear, a nice "leisurely" walk up Mt Vernon Farm Track
Not only is training in the gear good practice for the event but it's also helping to get our name out there and stress test the gear (if it can survive me training in it it can survive anything . . . )
I thought I'd do a quick introduction to my training partner in this endeavor. She can't run the event with me but she will certainly be a large part of my training
So, this is Rogue, my 7 year old troublemaker. Again, if you see us out and training please say hi.
Thanks so much for all the donations so far, my training has certainly started and you will see updates of both my fitness training and some of our team trainings all go up on this page.
Just for some quick context on the scope of what we are talking about with the Major Incident Support Teams, here is a shot of 2 of our equipment cache vans and our mobile command unit.
As you can imagine, the kind of gear available when this rolls up to an event/incident is so much help to the clinical teams.
