INTRODUCING JOSH SENIOR:

I’m Josh and I wanted to take the time to explain why I’m going to be popping up, hopefully pretty regularly at CHALKBOX.

A quick background but in 2010 I suffered a 35ft fall which resulted in multiple spinal injuries, a spinal fusion, a broken wrist and and a shattered ankle. Thanks to some incredible medical interventions, huge amount of rehab and a lot of support i have gone from being paraplegic with no feeling or movement in the legs to up and running, all be it with some seriously questionable sensation in the legs, and at the expense of my right ankle which was amputated in 2013.

I now lead a pretty busy and active life and I currently compete on the GB paraclimbing team as an international athlete which still blows my mind when I think of where I have come from.

I have a lot of people who I owe a huge amount, but not least of those is the air ambulance who airlifted me to the Royal London. Without them it’s questionable as to whether I would be alive. It’s doubtful I would have made this recovery.

As a result I am dedicating lot of time and effort this year to raising money, and more importantly awareness of what they do, and the reality that they are a charity and rely on peoples generosity to deliver the service they deliver.

I have come up with and started my 12 challenges in 12 months! The idea is that over 2019 I complete 12 big challenges, each of which could be seems as a goal for the year in their own right, but more than that, each of them would have seemed an absolute impossibility when I was going through rehab.

So where does CHALKBOX come in?? One of the challenges I have set myself is the CrossFit European championships in November, as an adaptive athlete. Until last week I had never set foot in a CrossFit gym so to say it was ballsy might be an understatment but I’m generally pretty well conditioned from all the climbing and a general love of training. I reached out to Agnes to see if maybe CHALKBOX might be willing to help me learn how to do CrossFit.

I am absolutely thrilled to say she was keen to support my crazy challenge and help get me up to speed. The goal now is not simply to compete in November for the sake of ticking off a challenge, it is to smash it and do myself and chalkbox proud!

So if you see my in the box please come say hi, find out how its going. See how I’m getting on. Check I’m not neglecting my climbing for CrossFit as its a world championship year this year and ask me how any of the other challenges are going too! I hope as I get to know you all you might be up for sharing what I’m doing, helping spread the word and helping create more publicity.

If you want to find out a bit more jump in the link to this page of my website and feel free to have a nose around to find out more about me: http://joshclimbs.co.uk/12-in-12-fundraising