Nine teams of Nottingham students are walking 50 miles to Ocean for Comic Relief

It may be a selfless sacrifice or it may be senseless stupidity, but today 22 Nottingham students will take on a 50 mile walk to Ocean in honour of raising money for Comic Relief.

The 22 students will be divided into 9 teams, each representing a different society or organization, hailing from URN, Karni, Welcome Week, Law Soc, Mooch, Hockey, Rugby, Futsal, and Equestrian.

Each group will be dropped off at a different location fitting to the make-up of their team, such as Birmingham’s Students’ Union Bar for Team Mooch, Doncaster Prison for Team Law, and Rugby School for Team Rugby.

From there, they have 24 hours to make it back on foot for a celebration in Ocean (if they can still walk).

This is the second time the challenge has ran, with 8 members of URN having attempted it last year. The walk was completed between 17-20 hours by all teams. However, 2 people dropped out at the 30 mile mark because they couldn’t hack the pace.

James Perkins, head of URN and the challenge ground team, told The Tab: “I expect most teams to do OK, but rain could cause a couple to drop out. We have cars on standby to pick up people if this happens.”

So, what propels someone to get involved with a challenge like this? Kyle, a second year Electrical Engineering student and member of Team Mooch, told us: “I was a bit drunk when I agreed to this and now it’s dawned on me how brutal it’s going to be. We’ve got tinnies for the road and free Ocean tomorrow so that’s the motivation behind it. Please pray for Mooch.”

The other motivation, obviously, is charity. Last year members of URN raised £1,800 for their efforts, with the teams this year already at a total of £1,405 and aiming to get to £2,500. If you would like to donate go to:

https://my.rednoseday.com/sponsor/road2nottingham 

The walk starts at 8pm tonight and goes on until 8pm tomorrow. All progress will be covered live on urn1350.net.