“I don’t think people comprehend what’s involved in doing such a challenge, some people ran with the idea straight away, and some people just thought I was completely nuts.”
Full time bar Manager, Joe Jermy climbed Mount Snowdon 6 times in 48 hours, only just missing out on the unofficial world record of 9 climbs set by a fire fighter.
“I previously did 31 sprint triathlons in 31 days, and I like to challenge myself, so I thought, what can I do to challenge myself that’s completely different to what I’ve done before?
“My family back home support a small charity called Lord Kitchener’s Memorial Holiday Centre who specifically cater for Armed Forces, Military Personnel, Veterans and the emergency services.
“They are a completely independent charity; they get no funding so all if their refurbishments in the hotel are through fundraising.”
The 36-year-old started his training in December last year trying to raise as much money before his climb as he could for a charity he already supported for so many years.
‘I really underestimated the challenge; I didn’t climb anything for longer than 10 hours in the build up to the event so doing more than 10 hours at once was a massive shock to the system.
‘If I didn’t have an amazing support team by my side, I wouldn’t have done as many climbs as I did. Their support and motivation were really important.’
‘On one of the climbs I joked to my friend Lewis that this was really tough and painful but it was all for Charity, and he said ‘I’m not doing this for charity, I’m doing this for you.’ And that really tugged the heart strings.’
Jermy was joined on his challenge my groups of his friends, as well as his wife Alice who he describes as ‘the most important person in his life.’
‘Having people that want to stick with you and motivate you to see you succeed is important to me.
I couldn’t have done it without them, if I was on my own, I think I would have tapped out some point sooner than I did.’
Jermy wasn’t just surrounded by friends on his climbs, with locals across the mountain handing out cash to Joe as his team throughout the 48 hours.
‘We had people on the mountain handing out cash, we had high Vis vests on with the 48 hour challenge on the back so people were getting their wallets out on the mountain and scanning QR codes.
‘We’ve shared the donation link on social media, and we’ve had lots more donations since the climb which has been really positive.’
Despite the sore recovery, the motivation of charity and unwavering support is what truly got the got him through this challenge, with the Hertfordshire local reflecting on his achievement.
‘My message to anyone out there is that you’re more capable of what you think, and if you set your mind to it, you can really do anything even if it’s hard.
