Bottled water brand Brecon Carreg’s virtual running team has raised £5,000 for Wales Air Ambulance.  

Earlier this year, Brecon Carreg selected a team of 10 runners to participate in a virtual running team called ‘Team Brecon Carreg’. The runners received free entry to races in Wales and lots of support and encouragement along the way.

Throughout the summer they faced extreme weather conditions, battled injuries and took on over 25 races between them. In total Team Brecon Carreg covered a total distance of 3,150 miles, helping them to reach the impressive £5,000 total.  

Brecon Carreg has supported Wales Air Ambulance for many years and for every mile that the team ran in training and races, a pound was donated to the helicopter charity.

Jenna Bissel, marketing manager at Brecon Carreg, said: “We’re thrilled to have raised a fantastic amount of money for such a worthy cause. Wales Air Ambulance provides a life-saving service across Wales every day and has even saved one of our own runners from a horrific accident.”

In 2015, Sonali Das Simpson from Porthcawl was run over and crushed by her own car, while collecting her daughter from school. Wales Air Ambulance attended the scene and performed life-saving chest surgery in the car park of the school. Sonali saw joining Team Brecon Carreg as a great opportunity to pay back WAA back for the care they gave her after the accident.

In addition to donating a pound per mile, Brecon Carreg donated a pound to every new follower they gained on Twitter over a period of 24 hours. This campaign raised a further £1,000, which was added to the total amount raised from the running team. Brecon Carreg wanted to reward their achievements by rounding it to a healthy total of £5,000.

Mark Stevens, Wales Air Ambulance Fundraising Manager, said: “We are so grateful for the generous donation and support we have received from Brecon Carreg and their runners; it really means the world to us. We rely totally on support and donations such as this to raise the £6.5million needed every year to keep our four helicopters flying. We would like to thank Brecon Carreg for their amazing support, which is helping to fund our life-saving missions across Wales”.