Brave fundraisers walked over fire yesterday to raise funds for a north-east fitness group.
Around 20 people dared to take part in the fire walk at Barclay Park to raise funds for Shape Up Peterhead.
Shape Up leader PJ Coutts came up with the idea to enable people to give back, while also boosting their own well-being by making them feel “unstoppable”.
He said afterwards: “It went a lot better than I expected. I’m glad that everyone seemed to get a lot out of this.”
Mr Coutts organised the event after completing a glass walk earlier this year.
He added: “It was such an incredible feeling and I wanted others to have that experience. I’m definitely interested in having another event like this in the future.”
The fitness group secured the “some of the world’s best firewalkers” to help mentally prepare participants prior and throughout the walk, including founder of Be Free, Graeme Pyper.
Mr Pyper said: “Fire walking is something that people of all ages and abilities are able to do. It’s all in the mind, we can be bound by our limitations or we can fight past that. Fire walking helps to show what we can all put our minds to if we don’t live life by our limits.”
Regular fit club member Allison McLennan was one of those who stepped on to the hot coals.
She said: “This is my second fire walk and I did this to help out the club. We’re all like a family and it brings the community together.”
Nine-year-old Eli Coutts also took part in the fun, and raised more than £200 – smashing the £100 target set for each participant.
All the money raised will go towards creating more storage space, purchasing new equipment and for the general upkeep of the facility.
‘Why I took part in the Peterhead fire walk’
I wanted to take part in the fire walk to give something back to the community while also challenging myself to do something new.
I was incredibly nervous beforehand as it was my first time doing something like this. However, I felt absolutely amazing afterwards and I can understand why this is something people do again and again.
Fire walking can be symbolic of overcoming lives hardships and challenges. At first, I partially wanted to do this out of intrigue but after hearing other peoples reasons for taking part, I realised it could help me in more ways than just being an interesting experience.
