Bristol man completes year-long challenge in memory of mother 

A Bristol man has completed a fitness challenge in memory of his mother, who died earlier this year.

Alex Welford set a goal to complete 100,000 press-ups across the year to raise money for the MS Society, a charity focusing on increasing research into multiple sclerosis (MS) and offering support for those who live with the condition.

A 25-year-old software engineer hopes his fundraising efforts will help towards finding a cure for MS after his mother, Alison Welford, died in May aged 66 having lived with the condition for more than 40 years.

He said: “It’s just all about stopping other people having the same experience that our family has gone through.

“It’s just not fair for people to have to deal with [MS] and my mum didn’t deserve that, so hopefully [the money] can help people also.

“It’s definitely been a mini coping mechanism as well to try and spread awareness and not just be in the doldrums about it the whole time.”

He added that reflecting on his mother’s death is “almost harder than the actual day” she died.

He said: “Throughout our lives, we’ve been so used to my mum living with the condition.

“By that day and by that point, we’d almost wanted her to be liberated of her pain. Not being able to breathe, eat and speak is just not a liveable situation for someone.

“Thinking back, that is a really hard day because it is the ending of her whole passage of life that just isn’t really fair for someone to even have in the first place.”

He said he was relieved to complete his mammoth challenge after he doubted whether he would reach his fundraising target.

“It feels just like a massive relief because I set this goal in mind. 

“It was a nice idea at the start of the year then it got to maybe five, six months in, and I had barely broken through £1000 and I was pretty daunted at the fact that I wouldn’t do it, to be honest.”

In December, Mr Welford started a community challenge encouraging as many people as possible to complete as many press-ups as they could over the month in a bid to reach his £10,000 goal.

“The idea was just to get everyone involved. It’s what I needed to get the fundraiser over the line.”

He surpassed his initial target and has so far raised £10,295 for the MS Society.

Reflecting on the year, he said: “I think it just breathed new life into the fundraising and into me persevering with putting as much time and work and effort into it to get to this goal that I had set.

“It’s satisfying that the effort got to the place I wanted to get to, and I didn’t leave anything on the table. It was all worth it.”

He hopes his fundraiser will encourage people to “do hard things”.

“Don’t hold yourselves back from doing things that other people think you can’t do,” he said.

Mr Welford plans to take a break from fundraising but hopes he can take on more personal challenges later this year.

He said: “[The fundraiser] has just spurred me on to want to do more hard things and to see what I’m actually capable of as a human and a person.”