How A Teacher Became A Team Captain To Ride 800 Miles For My Name’ Is Doddy

A fresh start can change a life, but turning that energy into a movement can change many. We sit down with Pauline Elizabeth—teacher, endurance athlete, and team captain of the Dawn Patrol Riders—to unpack the Doddy800: an 800-mile effort from Melrose to Dublin raising funds for My Name’ Is Doddy and motor neurone disease research. What begins as a story about a name change becomes a blueprint for how community, sport, and purpose fuse into real impact.

Pauline traces her route from business director back to the classroom, and from casual runs in Dollar to Ironman finishes with the Dollar Tri Twits. Along the way, we explore the practical magic of group momentum: 5 a.m. city roll-outs, relay pacing to hold 14 mph, and the unsung heroes in the sweeper van keeping bikes rolling over four demanding days. The itinerary is ambitious—Melrose to Leeds to Cheltenham, a night freight ferry from Pembroke to Rosslare, then a final push to Dublin’s Aviva Stadium—and every mile is tied to a clear target: £27,000 for this new team, with youth-led crews aiming even higher.

Beyond the ride, the heart of this episode is community. We shine a light on grassroots fundraising tactics, from turbo sessions outside the local deli to pub quizzes led by 22-year-old rider Struan Yearsley. We also share the team’s school outreach, delivering a Doddy Cape education pack focused on kindness, generosity, and civic action—small steps that form future fundraisers and leaders. And if you’re in Leeds, there’s an open call for accommodation to help seven riders and their support crew rest between stages.

If you care about endurance sport, charity rides, or the fight against MND, this conversation brings tangible details and real emotion—tears at finish lines, laughter on the road, and a throughline of relentless hope. Tap to listen, donate via the Dawn Patrol Riders JustGiving page, and share this story with someone who inspires you to go the extra mile. If the episode moved you, subscribe, leave a review, and help us keep the momentum rolling.

Transcript

Welcome And Episode Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Welcome back to the Sterling Business Podcast brought to you from Studio King Street in the heart of Stirling. Today I've got an interesting conversation with Pauline Elizabeth about the My Name is Doddy Foundation and the great work that you're doing to fundraise for the for the charity and cycling involved and a little bit of rugby and but we'll we'll come to that. But welcome to the studio, Pauline. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:39

I'm very well. Loved the trip back and seeing the white snow on Oakles. As it I previously lived in Dollar for 10 years, so lovely to be back in the area. Thanks for inviting me.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

So before we get started talking about the um the foundation and the work that you're doing from a cycling point of view, uh in support of that.

Pauline’s Name And Fresh Start

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Um tell us a little bit about your background and you know, Pauline Elizabeth is quite an interesting name as well uh as a surname. So interesting to understand a little bit about uh your background first and where you come from.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

So you touched on my name there. My name's Pauline Elizabeth. I changed my name by deed Paul, I think over a decade ago now. Um it was time for a change to represent myself as an empowered woman, had moved to dollar um through separation and then divorce, and um yeah, it was time to to start a new chapter in my life. So, you know, when I went back to teaching, I said to the lady next door, you know that those little cards that you get when you like start in a new building and they take your photograph and they want you you have to have an identity. So the um admin assistant at the office um said, What's your surname? And I thought she would have my paperwork and you know, it would have my previous uh surname. So I fleetingly said, My name's Pauline Elizabeth, and she said, What should we call you? And I said, Call me Miss Elizabeth. And when I went downstairs, I thought, Oh, that's a brave move, but that does sound quite nice, that's a new beginning. And um I put my name on the door as Miss Elizabeth. But two or three days later, while having lunch with my great friend Linda, um, I said, Um, I changed my name the other day, but not really officially, as in, you know, like I think there must be some form you fill out. And she was horrified about this. And she was I was teaching in Dunfermlin at the time. She's like, it's time you got along there and get that deep poll certificate. How many years later?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Years later was this?

SPEAKER_01 2:46

No, it was literally weeks. But yeah, who would know? Within two or three weeks, you can change your name, start afresh, and um it was just a great representation of who who am

From Business Director Back To Teaching

SPEAKER_01 2:59

I now? You know, this uh you know, a single person returning to teaching, had been in business for 10 years up in Persia. And I think this is my connection with your colleague that I was our partner and owner in Algo Business Centre and Inver Amon Business Centre. Um I was responsible for the tenancies and uh negotiation or of you know, landing some of our significant tenants at the time as Forrester Commission and Balfour Beattie, and that was my remit. And I enjoyed being a director also in algo construction. But I think the main beauty was having like a scope and opportunity as a woman in in the area at that time to notice um opportunity for a new building, and we bought the new woods building, well, not the woods building who they fell on hard times, and we um transformed that into a new business centre in a very short period of time. And yeah, I would like to think that I I certainly had a stronghold and input into that, and I'm very grateful for all the businesses that believed in me at the time, and um, I was true to my word and did a lot of stakeholder negotiation with banks, etc., at the time. So, but it was only two or three years later that here I was, humbly going back to teaching, um, having moved it to Dollar, um, living in an apartment that I owned, because we also had um uh five-star um self-catering properties in Perth, uh in Perth, but we had one other one in Dollar.

Dollar Connections And Rugby Thread

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Uh yeah, right Okay, there's a connection there because I had service accommodation in Dollar, I own the Castle Campbell Hotel. Oh, and they and still do actually and develop that is.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Hey, you've been my competitor and I haven't known about you.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

There you go. There you go. There we go. Yeah, so the connection with Dollar, um bit of a big rugby school. My lad's a big rugby fan, in fact, little story about that. So I've just been away for a week skiing with him, so we were best mates for the week. Yeah. We get off the plane on Saturday and we go straight to Murrayfield to watch the uh the game on Saturday. And he's he sat down, he said, Dad, he says we've been best mates for a week, but for the next 80 minutes we're absolutely enemies, right? Yeah. So he's a big Scotland fan, and I'm obviously English. And uh yeah, he he came out on top, so he he won that one. But yeah, he's a big rugby fan, but Dollars specifically, um, and that nice connection really into the kind of my my name is Doddy um initiative. Um they have a team that they're putting into the uh you know the race this year, or the race or the event. Yeah, the five years. And some of his uh best mates in his year are actually part participating. It's wonderful. So it's a fantastic uh fantastic course. So let's get into that a little bit.

Finding Triathlon And The Dollar Tri Twits

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Okay. Uh firstly, um, how did you get involved in cycling in the first place?

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Oh, so uh when I moved to Dollar, I had done a number of triathlons and but um in when I was living in Perthshire, but small ones, like small sprint triathlons. Um and when I moved to Dollar, I connected with the most fantastic group of women, um and dollar runners, um, we were dollar parents, and we would run up the Ocals along the Tillycootry line, and uh we had such a fantastic um bond. There was four of us who had a conversation one night um in and around um it was probably at the Dollar Academy, uh probably at the captain's uh um room, um, and we had this discussion about the potential to do triathlon. And the other three ladies said to me, But Pauline, we can't swim. And I said, Well, you everyone can swim. You know, you everyone can swim. And they said, No, we can't swim. And I said, Well, you know, you have to do what, 750 metres, let's start with a sprint triathlon. You can s you can like count the lengths, you know, you can count lengths, and they were saying, There's we wouldn't manage that. So I said, Let's go to the dollar pool and let's check this out. So we all got in the pool, and I said, Right, go on then. Girls, let me see you go across to the other side of the wall and back again. And oh my goodness, they couldn't swim. These ladies, two maybe less years later, uh competed and completed Iron Man Distance Triumphlands. Phenomenal, you know, 3,000 plus swimming, uh um open water swimming, followed by 180k on the bike, and then a marathon at the end. So the m why I really got into cycling was was those ladies. The the dollar, we called ourselves the dollar tri-twits, and the maybe the twits uh name. Maybe maybe we should have changed the twits for a while because it became a very social group. Um however, you know, that's the that's the camaraderie of getting on the bike and seeing beautiful countryside, learning new new uh um routes that were phenomenal.

Ironman Journeys And Cycling Camaraderie

SPEAKER_01 7:49

These girls were um so motivated and you know animated. So we just you know formed a really tight, tight bond, tight friendship, completed Iron Man Barcelona, keep and then completed Iron Man Um Austria. And then we went on to do our own things, our own independent chapters of our next next stories in our next life.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Great. Well, and definitely resonate with the uh the cycling. So I'll I got into it through my corporate career actually. We did the ride across Britain, the ride across Britain two years in a row. So we had a peloton of about 20 of us used to work for Cisco Systems. Okay. And we cycled from John of Gross to Lanz End one year, then Lanzen to John of Gross the following year, over nine days. So very painful on the uh on the derriere. But um, yeah, so I I I definitely get the camaraderie, you're sticking thin, gun up hills, all all weathers, um and sticking together and kind of keeping it going. So so that kind of brings us really into the the foundation work that you're doing for my name is Doddy. So um the cycling event in support of that.

Host’s Ride Across Britain Experience

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Um how did how did you get specifically involved in that?

SPEAKER_01 8:58

The dollar try-twits um uh w you know were uh as I said, were a tight group of of ladies and uh um Fee Glasgow, um good friend of um Rob Wainwright, um, was was contacted directly by Rob Wainwright to say, you know, come captain a team. And of course she was delighted to to captain a team and um with Fee's leadership um she took us on the first uh my first experience of doing the Doddy ride, and that was from Murrayfield Stadium to the Principality Stadium um in Wales. And so that was our my first um opening to it, and uh you know we we did turbo events to fundraise outside Dollars Delhi. Oh, and you were part of that, right? Okay. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

So people would uh

First Doddy Ride And Grassroots Fundraising

SPEAKER_00 9:46

seeing you on the Saturday morning going out and be bacon buddy.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Exactly, exactly. And then getting some lovely messages uh from you know key people at the time, and Doddy himself sent us a beautiful um supportive message to stay on our bikes and keep her hands out of the cookie jar kind of thing. So we felt very personally close to to um being rugby supporters, our children were at Dollar Academy, and um yeah, there was there was lots of positive connection there. And you mentioned that um there's a dollar team going out this year. Um Sean McFarland is the the team captain for that, and Sean and I have been lazing about how do we find accommodation en route. And I found a school in Cheltenham that will um host my team. Our my team's called the the Don Patrol Riders uh for my name's Doddy. And um, yeah, so I met Sean actually out at a loch just outside um Dollar a number of years ago after we would been doing our Iron Man swimming. And I guess maybe he was thought, yeah, look at these, look at these kids that are whipping up and catching up on me. He's a phenomenal um cyclist and swimmer, and yeah, I'm just really proud that he's got the youth involved. I think that's really important. I I am a teacher and educator. I started my in my twenties as a school teacher and then have um returned to that in the last 10 years whilst doing other other business uh um projects. But it it's important to recognise that people like Sean will develop future fundraisers and uh and that's that's really important to me.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Yeah, it's great. So one of my uh my boy Oliver, his um one of his best mates from school is doing it, uh Alexander Smith, so a big shout out for Alexander. Yeah, um and there's some fundraising going on around

Building Teams And Youth Involvement

SPEAKER_00 11:32

uh you know outside of the event for for Alexander as well. So wonderful. That's great to be able to make the connection, connect it back to Dollar, connect it back to the rugby team, and you know, kind of My Name is Doddy, which is uh which is a great course.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Yeah. So after Fee led our team, um by chance uh at a one-year anniversary of um the Dawn Patrol, or perhaps not by chance, because Mark Bowman, um who's an adventure cyclist and very well known and very well connected with Dollar Academy, a speaker on a number of occasions at lots of the schools uh uh throughout Scotland to promote you know adventure cycling and and and that positive spirit of doing things and taking action into a momentum um theme. So but he he's a supporter of Dawn Patrol. When I was living in Dollar, I was itching to get out of dollar, to live back in a city, and I was watching Dawn Patrol riders rock out of um the roll out, roll out, not rock out. Maybe they do rock out with a few tunes some mornings um of St Andrew Square at 5 40am. And Mark Bowman, I was sharing it, so I was desperate to get to Edinburgh and and join um people who are early morning uh cyclists. My dollar try twits.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Crazy people, early morning.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Yeah, yeah. My dollar try twits were weekend and more uh um reasonable times. So and I'm an early morning person, so why?

SPEAKER_00 12:56

But not 5am.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Yeah, so if I'm a 5am girl. Um so anyway, when I got to Edinburgh and they were having a one-year anniversary, Mark Bowman brought Rob Wainwright into the room and share sharing cake and things like this, and and Rob and I were having that conversation, you know. How do we how did we meet? And then, you know, the simple question is, would you like to captain a team? And of of course, of course you're going to say the yes to this. Last year they raised £1.2 million. Wow. That's phenomenal. Who wouldn't say yes to to a recurring uh small part to play in that? We're a new team, our target's

Targets, Riders, And The 800-Mile Challenge

SPEAKER_01 13:36

£27,000, which will be very modest to Dollar Academy. Sean McFarland's team uh have a target of £50,000. They probably got quite quite a bit of strength in their um team in terms of fundraising experience. One of my riders is 22 years old. A big um shout out to uh Struan Yearsley. He's 22, he's from Okterarder, he's uh studying in Edinburgh and he's put himself forward for doing the ride 800 miles um from Melrose to Dublin. But not only that.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

How many days is that over?

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Four days. Oh wow. Four days.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

I did nine hundred and fifty over nine days at the ride across Britain. Over nine days. And that was tough.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

So um you know, a shout out to Struan, because Struan's running our pub a quiz um at Edinburgh Academicals on the sixth Friday, the sixth of March. And for a 22-year-old taking uh, you know, the mantle of a fundraiser, you know, a bit like Sean, we're we're encouraging growth in in the charitable, you know, momentum.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

As part of the kind of my name is Doddy uh Foundation initiative, is it just one event a year or are are there other events, fundraising events throughout the year out with the cycling?

Doddy Aid And The Triple Crown Route

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Yeah, so i are you familiar with Doddy Aid? Um it's you know part of the the the charitable uh and so people from you know uh the first of January through to you know the the first week in February are putting in their miles and logging it through an adjustment. I am aware of that. It's just raising all the awareness of the Doddy Dukes and but all the other fundraisers that go around this. But for me, I know very much about the the the Triple Crown ride. It's called the Triple Crown this year. You can you can Google that and find a way, find the page that gives you the full the full spec of of what our day is going to look like and getting the ferry from Pembroke to Rossleer. Um we're on a freight ferry, so you know it's not gonna be a comfortable journey from 2:30m in the morning, but you know, we're all we're all up for the community connectivity, which is really important for it to work.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Brilliant. Okay, so when is the event taking place?

The Four-Day Plan And Emotional Finish

SPEAKER_01 15:47

So we um cycle out um from Doddy Wears Farm on the 10th of March. It's a Tuesday, and from Melrose we um cycle to Leeds, and from Leeds we cycle then um on to um Gloucester. We are going to be staying at a school um in uh Cheltenham and a big shout out to Georgina Flukes, who's the head teacher um there, and she is hosting.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Well, you're staying in Leeds and just in the field?

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Um I know Avell in Cheltenham this we're staying in a school and the Cheltenham, but what about Leeds? So oh in Leeds, we don't have a connection yet. So a big plea out there for anybody. I've I've made two or three contacts to people in Leeds, and either I've been misbehaving when I've visited you before, but you've not actually offered me a bed. So anyone in Leeds that knows me, us, I we we need accommodation in Leeds because at the moment we're on the either a rugby club floor or a gym floor. Okay. Um so Pure Gym have offered um floor space in in most of the destinations that we are travelling through, which is wonderful, but it's really hard work. It's not a bed, it's not a bed.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

And how big is your team?

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Seven seven riders. Seven riders, and we've got a support team that matches it because we need a navigator and a driver for four vehicles. So um yeah, so seven and eight,

Mechanics, Support Vans, And Strategy

SPEAKER_01 17:06

school teacher would say. Roughly fifteen and eight. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Okay, so you go to Cheltenham and then you go from Cheltenham on top of the Yes, we cycle on to Pembroke then and we wait for the ferry till 2 30am in the morning. And then when we get off at Rossleer, we cycle all the way up to Dubl Dublin to Black Rock uh College. We reform there as a Black Rock.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

I used to have an office there way back. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Yeah, okay. Well it's gonna be a new visit for me. I don't know um too much. Never never visited, so first for me, and then we'll farm together and we will make uh our our way into um the Viva Stadium. And uh to me that was when we arrived um in Feet Glasgow um uh uh captained us into to Wales, the phenomenal like welcome we got into we into Cardiff and then to the castle, like you know, the tears were rolling down your face because you knew that the M and you knew that you were riding beside people who had early diagnosis, had lost somebody with M and D, um uh, or we knew we knew who we were cycling for, you know. So the pet you know the pedal strokes mattered.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Brilliant. Okay, so you end up in Dublin and you probably forget how you get home because you'll be on the black stuff uh before

How To Donate And School Engagement

SPEAKER_00 18:23

you get back on the very back. So fantastic. So four days, um and then the bikes, how the bikes getting back to the UK.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Ace bikes in Musselborough have our our mechanical sponsorship and they also have provided us with two uh um mechanics, and Stuart and John. Big shout out to them. They're giving up four days of work, they're travelling with us with a uh we're gonna call them the sweeper van, so they're always going to be on our uh um riders, so cycling, not cycling, riding or driving a good bit of distance behind them to to to allow like them to cycle on. I must say our seven riders are phenomenally experienced cyclists. Um Jane Dennison is um uh committed to the full distance, and we are going to be in some of us into a relay formation, keeping her at 14 miles per hour. Um and yeah, you know, a big shout out to us all that have you know decided on what let level of cycle challenge that we are taking on for the duration of the four days. Um but yeah, one particular rider um is um going all in and she's very capable. She's a uh you know uh uh an endurance rider, and um yeah, we can't wait to tell the story of of how she gets on. So I would hope that people will follow follow her page.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Great. Talking about kind of following and um donations and uh you know giving back, so how do people sponsor you for the event? Okay where do they need to go?

SPEAKER_01 19:52

So if you find a Dawn Patrol Riders Just Giving page, we have a Dawn Patrol Riders. So it's a just giving page that has our team um page on it, and you can donate directly to our team. Within that team, you will be able to see all of the riders and some of the supporters have set up a just giving page. Um shout out to my sister Karen Neal, who ha in in two days, she doesn't know how she did it, she opened her just giving page and then I said, You know, you've got £600 already. She said, Who from? And but she just posted it once. She's a very well-recognised farmer and businesswoman um just north of Perth there. And um, she's dedicating four days in navigating for us and driving for us and you know, hot soup and you know, food on the go when we'll need it. Um so yeah, you can find on patrol riders. Um, and we also follow the hashtag uh Doddy800. Our particular team are um visiting schools along the way. So we have two schools between each of our destinations in a day, and um we're involving the children to get involved in our educational pack that wears the Doddy where's the Doddy Cape. And the Doddy Cape is about showing generosity, showing kindness, um taking steps in um understanding what it means to be a good citizen within your community and show um, you know, show a little bit of of love for others that might need it, and even that might be uh, you know, a period of time in whole uh in hospital or you know, you know, other things that touch our heart that we know that you need to be there for others. So instead of we're not sending out crosswords and we're not sending out mathematical challenges, we are sending out things that I believe should be like intrinsic um good, good, wholesome ethics for for us all as individuals to learn at an at an early age.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Brilliant. Okay.

Closing Thanks And Donation Push

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Well, look, Pauline, it's a fantastic course. Um hopefully we can help get the message out for you through the podcast channel. Yeah. We'll certainly kind of plan to try and get this episode out. in good time so that you can hopefully get some donations and we can kind of boost the pot. So good luck. I'm sure you won't need it based upon uh you know the Iron Lady that you are. Um and good luck to the rest of the team and uh yeah it'll be great to kind of see how you get on and maybe come back and talk about the experience on another podcast at some time. Thank you. Thank you for coming along. You're welcome so thank you again uh for attending the Sterling Business podcast and uh we had a fantastic guest this week something a little bit different in terms of a charitable cause uh Pauline Pauline Elizabeth and the my name is Doddy Foundation so thank you Pauline and till next time uh stay safe