SHE’S climbed the ladder to forge a successful TV career, but Carlow girl Kathryn Thomas is about to take on new heights … that’ll leave her on top of the world.
Kathryn has joined a team of celebrities who will take on Africa’s highest peak Kilimanjaro in aid of the Children’s Medical and Research Foundation at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin.
“It’s going to be a huge challenge,” Kathryn told The Nationalist. “I have a fair level of fitness but I’m just back from a girly holiday, where there was a lot of wine and beer consumed and I’ve put on about a stone so it’s a good incentive to snap back into it,” she laughed.
Joining Kathryn on the Climb for Kids Mount Kilimanjaro Challenge is Sile Seoige, Alan Shortt, Jenny Buckley, Aisake O hAilpin, Darren Holden, Karl Spain and Ruth Scott. All are in the midst of training for the trek, including spending time in a compression chamber to help cope with altitude.
The team will leave Dublin on 9 October and spend seven gruelling days taking on Africa’s highest mountain. Each day they will trek for an average of seven hours through forest, semi-desert and alpine desert before taking on stone scree and reaching Kilimanjaro’s ice-capped summit on 15 October.
“It’s 5,895 metres high, with extremes of temperatures along the way,” explained Kathryn. “The whole thing is to listen to your body and ascend slowly. Altitude sickness can be fatal so the advice is to really take your time and if you feel any bit of light-headedness or nausea to come back down.”
However, Kathryn will have one thing driving her forward as she takes on this incredible challenge, and that’s the thought of the children in Crumlin Hospital. “Yes, this will be a struggle for a couple of days but my thoughts will be with the children who struggle every day of their entire lives – that’s the incentive to keep going,” she said.
As part of her fundraising, Kathryn hopes to hold an event in Carlow to drum up support in her home town.
To take on your own personal challenge to Climb 4 Kids Mount Kilimanjaro Challenge, organisers are asking 1,000 people to raise €100 by taking up their own pedometer challenge. You can sign up and receive a ‘Climb 4 Kids’ pedometer, log your own steps and kind of climb Kilimanjaro with the team, all the way to the summit.
For anyone who would like to donate to the project and follow the progress of the celebrities, log on to www.cmrf.org. You can also tune in to 2FM every day of the climb for updates and reports from the celebrities.