In the summer of 2024, the idea of a 20-24 challenge came to mind, which was to do 20 hours of exercise over a 24-hour period. On December 20, myself and 3 other teammates began this challenge. The first 10 hours were spent in the gym doing 8 x 1-hour circuits with a 15 minute break in between each hour. We then cycled one hour to Djouce Woods in Co Wicklow. From there we hiked 11 hours through the night and arrived at our finish point in Marley Park in Dublin, the following morning.

This journey began simply as a personal challenge. However, about 2 months before the event, I was brought to tears one morning when in London for work. I had the news on in the background of my hotel room when a 7-minute piece was shown on sky news. The story was about the killing of a beautiful little Palestinian girl in Gaza named Hind Rajab (pictured here). My heart was both broken and stolen simultaneously. This inspired me and the team to use our challenge to raise money for the Irish Red Cross in Ireland. The money we raised (€19,000) was channelled through to their sister organisation in Gaza (Palestinian Red Crescent) to purchase badly needed medical and humanitarian supplies for the thousands of people suffering unimaginably in Gaza.