A SALISBURY woman has been recognised with an award after completing 30 challenges of different shapes and sizes.

Abi Cleary, a personal trainer, raised more than £2,000 for Bloodwise, formerly Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, a charity she says is close to her family’s hearts.

She was invited by Bloodwise to attend a special ceremony in London where she received the creative fundraiser of the year award.

Speaking of the award win, she said: “I was really shocked. I was not expecting anything.”

Her cousin was diagnosed with Leukaemia in October 2017 and is now officially in remission, but as Abi was turning 30, she wanted to do something “different” to raise money.

She then set her sights on completing 30 challenges for her 30th year, all before her birthday in July.

Many of the challenges were fitness related. The challenges kicked off on New Year’s Day last year with a swim in the sea, and she also completed a marathon row, 10 hours on a spin bike, a 30-mile walk with two miles of lunge walks and a mile of bear crawls, hops, skips and jumps, a walk up Laverstock downs hill 30 times, and the last challenge was to complete 2,012 burpees on her birthday.

“In a way it was a relief [to have completed the 30 challenges] as it took up a lot of time with training for certain things. I love doing that sort of thing.In a way I wanted to carry on. I was glad to get the 30,” said Abi.

“The favourite one was the 30 mile walk, I enjoyed that, and the 20 mile lunge around Old Sarum. I got quite a few funny looks.”

But Abi admits the hardest challenge was the burpees, which she says was “emotionally and physically challenging”, adding: “It was a bit different to spend my 30th birthday doing that.”

Abi is already considering her next fundraising challenge.

To make a donation go to justgiving.com/fundraising/acleary