Azets Birmingham takes on the M6 Motorway Challenge
The team is travelling 232.2 miles in virtual health and wellbeing initiative over lockdown
A group of employees from Azets Birmingham is travelling 232.2 miles – the length of the M6 motorway – in a health and wellbeing office challenge with a twist, including milestones, pitstop days and challenges along the virtual route.
Created by Jaden Reynolds, Jo Cox, Elizabeth Malkin and Rachel Green as an initiative to promote health and wellbeing in the workplace, they invited the whole of Azets’ Birmingham office to participate by clocking the distances they walk or run during the lockdown and adding it to the team tracker on Microsoft Teams.
The challenge started on 19th March 2021 at the southern end of the M6, in Catthorpe, and will end across the Scottish border in Gretna Green. There are 11 milestones along the way, with the team sharing interesting facts about the areas they have reached.
The challenge also includes ‘pitstop days’, where participants are encouraged to virtually explore the M6 towns and villages by continuing physical activity without adding their mileage to the total, and ‘challenge days’, where participants complete feats such as the virtual Yorkshire 3 Peaks or Ingleton Waterfall Trail without these distances counting towards the total.
Praveen Gupta, Office Managing Partner with Azets Birmingham, added: “As a team, we are always coming up with new ways to support one another and this has been particularly important over the past year. I challenged the team to create an office-wide initiative and the ingenuity and commitment by Jaden, Jo, Elizabeth and Rachel to devise and manage the M6 Motorway Challenge is outstanding.
“Awareness around mental and physical health and wellbeing has been brought into sharp focus, and I am proud to lead a team that is as caring as it is talented.”
Rachel Green, Administration Manager with Azets Birmingham, said: “We wanted to encourage colleagues to get outdoors, take some fresh air and make time for themselves – especially during difficult periods of lockdown. The challenge has been really well received, with lots of people getting involved. At one 48-hour pitstop in the Peak District, we recorded 31 miles, which highlighted participation even when that distance didn’t count towards reaching the final milestone at Gretna Green.”
