Piggy March spoke on Saturday (30 November) about the mix of emotions on finishing the Cycle4Caroline challenge, a 1,100km bike ride set up in memory of her sister-in-law Caroline March, to raise money for Spinal Research and the British Eventing Support Trust.
Piggy and her husband Tom, Caroline’s brother, were among the riders who left Blair Castle in Scotland on 20 November and arrived at The Savoy in London on Saturday, 10 days later, having raised over £280,000. It had been a very tough 10 days; the riders battling the worst winter weather, falls and injuries.
“It’s definitely tested us to the limits – in some ways, more than I expected, but then, I was actually terrified of trying to do it. I thought, ‘I don’t even know that I can get up these hills or to the end of these long days’, because I’m not a strong, fast cyclist,” Piggy said. “But in a group, I’ve climbed some hills that if I was training, there’s no chance I would have kept soldiering on up – I’d have got off and cried or had a strop. It’s different when it’s the real thing, you’re with such amazing people, you have the adrenaline. It’s like I always said to myself coming into this – my legs work, shut up, get on and do it.”
Piggy also spoke about her relief at making it to the end, particularly with a larger group cycling the final stretch from Windsor to London.
“I’m just really glad we’ve done it, we got to the end, and everybody is okay. I felt quite responsible for all that lot today, it’s not nice with the traffic on the bikes. It’s a bit scary.”
On the challenges the core riders have undertaken over the past two weeks, the double five-star winner said: “It was relentless. Some days the weather was hideous. But we’re event riders, we’re a different breed, aren’t we? Whatever the weather is, you go out and you do it, and we all have that mentality, even though it took you to places where I think we all thought, ‘Well, normal people might think this is not possible.’
“We would have walked it. We would have got to that destination that night or at 2am, or whatever it might have been. If there was a way, every single person in that group would have got there. The strength of people’s minds through the whole week is the extraordinary thing. But we know that in our sport anyway – it takes you to difficult places, so we are quite resilient.
“We got to the end. Caroline would have loved it. She would have loved doing something like that.”
Piggy said there were some “incredibly pleasurable moments” on the journey: “There were parts on a nice, flat bit of road, getting some miles knocked off and quizzing Scotty [Ian Stark] about all his experiences, his horses, his systems. I loved learning.”
Piggy March on Cycle4Caroline: “You see how much the charities need support”
Cycle4Caroline has raised over £283,000 and donations continue to come in. Piggy said: “It’s awful talking money and asking for money, but when you actually start getting involved with the charities, you see how much they need support. I’m just glad that this does just make a bit of a difference and hopefully the amount will rise again.
“There are still things we’ll do in the future to help, because we know how much it is needed, but not on a bike again. I’ve done that bit, never again. It’s been no secret all the way through that I found it bloody uncomfortable and not pleasant, but that’s good as well. You push yourself through pain and we’ve had a lot of pain for a while, but it’s actually quite nice that it’s on the outside of your feelings, if that makes sense.”
Piggy March said she has been “wired” during Cycle4Caroline, sleeping terribly and waking up thinking she was still pedalling.
She said: “I’ve been way more stressy than ever I was with the horses. I think we just wanted to get it done, everyone to be safe, money to be raised, and then hopefully, a little bit of closure. Caroline and this will never be forgotten, but we just tried to make something good out of bad.”
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