Zombie Run!

Our original plan for the weekend had been to run Glow in the Park on Friday and then (having stayed at Heaton Park overnight) run Heaton parkrun on the Saturday morning. William however spotted Mad Bull Event's Zombie Run in my Facebook news feed. After a bit of a chat and realising it was only half an hour away from Heaton Park in the direction of home we signed up! An excellently themed run for Halloween!

We got to Horwich for 9am and collected our running numbers amid some very gory individuals with knives and axes through their heads! Quite a few of the other runners were also dressed up in costumes too. This was the first time this run has taken place we were told so there was a nice select number of runners taking part from William's age upwards. We headed to the start line just before 10am and got ready to run! Sam was going to run with Andy and I had William.

We set off down the lane, leaping over puddles and muddy patches. We were just going through a section of houses when a 'vampire zombie' jumped out at us! William was definitely startled, although he swears he wasn't! We carried on and found ourselves headed on a trail uphill. And then uphill a bit more. And just as we thought we couldn't get any higher, we turned onto a road and went uphill again! We were on the way to the spooky woods where we were sure to meet up with some more undead!

The zombies were really enjoying jumping out at runners in the woods I think and had found some good hiding places. William thought it was brilliant when he had to try and run round them. We'd gotten ahead of Andy and Sam at this point and I found myself wondering how Sam was finding them. Andy told me later that he stopped briefly to get a better look at them and gave them a grin!

William flew through the woods and when we started to descend we were careful not to fall over on the wet leaves and steps. We eventually came back out onto a lane again and had a bit of a jump when a zombie we had 'escaped' from earlier made another appearance over a stone wall!

Shortly after, Andy and Sam caught us up. This was mainly a combination of William slowing right down to try and avoid the mud and Sam speeding up and running straight through the mud with delight! We were on the home stretch back along the lane we came down originally when we got snapped by the very nice Mark Lysycia. I LOVE this family photo.

Photo taken by Mark Lysycia

We made a dash for the finish and got cheered in by the other participants which was lovely. We all got a medal and there were sweets for the boys and a bottle of wine for Andy and myself!

There was a really good atmosphere to this run. It was a challenging 5k but the trail element and the zombies made it a huge amount of fun. I loved the fact we were able to do it as a family too as most 5k runs are for older children or adults. I hope we'll be able to come and do this one again next year.

Glow in the Park - Heaton Park

We had a double whammy of a running weekend! We ran Glow in the Park on Friday night and then the Zombie Run on Saturday morning (will write about this in another post!).

I signed us up for Glow in the Park back in May as soon as entries had opened as I thought the boys would get a real kick out of this, especially Sam as he'd be in sensory heaven with seeing all the fantastic lights outdoors. We even booked a family room at the Premier Inn across the road from Heaton Park so we wouldn't have to drive back late at night.

It should have taken us 1.5 hours to get to Heaton Park but to our great dismay when we went to get onto the M6 the traffic was at a stand still! We made a quick decision to try moving further south on the A6 instead, which was also terrible and it took us almost 3 hours to get to the motorway at Lancaster. I was panicking a bit at this point as the run was due to start at 7.45/8pm and it was already nearing 6pm! Luckily for us the traffic was flowing again on the motorway and we arrived at the hotel just before 7pm. A very quick change and walk over into the park and we arrived in time to join the registration queue where we picked up our numbers and neon headbands!

I met up briefly with a lovely lady whom I've known on facebook for years but had never met face to face with! We're hoping we can meet up again at a slightly quieter run sometime! The music was playing, the lights were flashing and we headed out onto the course with our headtorches and glow sticks!

The first 'tunnel' we came to seemed to spit out a kind of greeny slime at you from the sides. A quick dash through that one! The next tunnel was filled with UV lights and we stopped for a photo here.

We jogged on for a bit after that until we reached a section where a fan was shooting out foam. We spent a minute or two here and then had to pull Sam away as I'm pretty sure he could have spent all day playing in the bubbles.

We went through a little section where fire was shooting up at the sides every few seconds then headed toward the last tunnel, lit up by colourful stripes!

The course was two laps so we got to go round it all again after that before heading to the finish. No medal for this run but we got our headbands as souvenirs and a little pack of granola at the finish. The boys absolutely loved Glow in the Park and I'm pretty sure would have done another lap given half the chance!

We headed back to our family room at the Premier Inn after that and tried to get two exciteable boys to sleep. It was an interesting night but everyone managed a bit of sleep at least which was good as we had our next run in the morning.  

Ulverston Charter 5k and the Boys PB Week!

This last week's running got off to a great start at the weekend with Barrow parkrun PBs for both boys! It was pacers week so we decided to use it as an opportunity to see if William could beat his PB of 35.37 from May. He smashed it and got a new PB of 34.55. Sam has been doing really well with his running for the last few weeks now and he managed to go sub 40 minutes for the first time which is a huge achievement for him. His new PB is 39.51!

Still on a runner's high from parkrun, we ventured out to the Ulverston Charter 5k run on Wednesday evening. Andy signed up to do the main event and both boys were registered for the 1 mile fun run. I would be running with William again and Sam with Andy.

Well, it felt like William and I were just jogging along, but the nearer we got to the finish I realised that with a bit of sprinting William might just make it a course PB. He was amazing and finished in 10.16, knocking 9 seconds off his previous best time.

Sam was still in his element with running and ran really well. He managed to knock a few minutes off his best course time and finished in 12.20. I was thrilled for him. Both boys received a new medal for their brilliant efforts.

Andy took on the 5k again. The boys and I watched him head off at the start then went back to the playground for a bit until the first runners started coming back.

 

He completed the run in 25.57 which was only about 30 seconds slower than his previous time from last year. He's not done a massive amount of solo running recently for training so I think he did really well.

Walney Fun Run 2015

Last Sunday was the Walney Fun Run, our running group's event of the year, not to be missed! Last year both boys did the Disability Mile run with me and Andy ran the 10k. The picnic afterwards was unbelievable and we all had a thoroughly good time.

Imagine then our dismay last Sunday morning when we got up to heavy rain (blowing sideways!). Hopes were slightly dashed, but the forecast promised that the rain would leave at 10am in time for the Disability Mile to start. Sam was running it again this year with me for company.

We arrived at the registration/finishing field as set up was still going on. Andy signed up as a running marshal helping to keep an eye on the WWC cubs this year (including William) in the 5k event. As soon as William was given his running number by our run leader I took him over to the registration tent to collect his timing tag. Meanwhile, Charlie and Chicky Cheetah also made an appearance, much to Sam's delight.

10 o'clock came and went and the rain stayed unfortunately! The Disability Mile start got slightly changed due to a flood at the gate so Sam and I headed out on the road to start there instead. The rain was still coming down so he ran in his raincoat. The mayor of Barrow set us off and we headed up the road. Sam was right at the back for most of the road section, with me steering him round the huge puddles. We reached the turning point and headed towards the beach path. No sooner had I got him round an enormous puddle but he ran straight through two more! Kids!! At least he was running I suppose! We actually overtook some of the other runners and he didn't stop until we reached the finish. We turned into the finishing field and headed across it to the sound of the 5k and 10k runners cheering Sam on. As usual it was a wonderful feeling and Sam received his medal when we crossed the line and had a photo taken with the mayor.

We couldn't stop though, as I had to get back round to William and Andy as they had our bags and we had to get William ready for his 5k run. Running shoes on (brought him in wellies), number pinned, hoody discarded, pep talk from the run leaders and a warm up later, and he set out with the cubs to the starting point. The 10k runners went first followed by the 5k runners. I was waiting with Sam a little further down the road ready with the camera phone! Saw William and the other cubs head off up the road then we moved down to the finishing gate to wait for them to come back in. The weather improved eventually and it started to feel warm! 

Spotted William coming in and we gave him a cheer. He looked very determined and his running watch showed a definite sprint finish when we looked at his times later. I grabbed Sam and we dashed to the back of the finish to collect and congratulate him. We didn't find out till later but his official time was 37.36 which is fantastic! We also heard some lovely comments about how well he was running so I was a very proud mum. Andy came into the field with the last of the cubs and we headed over to get a hot dog for William who had been promised one by Andy.

After the run was finished, we all got our things together for the picnic. I didn't think it could get any bigger than last years, but oh my, as a group the WWC outdid themselves in the goody department. The picnic was enormous, the sun absolutely shone for us and all the kids ran around giddily playing with hula hoops. Perfect end to the day!

Grasmere Gallop 2015

Should have blogged this one last week but haven't had a chance! 

This was our second time at the Grasmere Gallop, we ran the 5.7k fun run last year and got thoroughly soaked. But we still enjoyed the run, and having decided the weather couldn't be any worse for this year, we booked camping at Ambleside again and the fun run. Well, the rain held off this time, but someone turned up the wind. It was very hard to believe it was June, just look at that sky!

A very large contingent of Walney Wind Cheetahs attended this time. We had runners in the fun run, 10k run and the 17k run. Just before 11am we all met up at the muster point and were piped to the start line in the village. I was running with William and Andy was running with Sam. We all set off together, headed for Red Bank. William did a brilliant job of getting up the hill and I was pleasantly suprised to find that the wind had died down quite a bit on the route. 

When we were partway up Red Bank, we dropped off on a trail down to the lake shore and had a quick drink at the water station. Then we carried on along the path till we reached the road again then it was pretty much all downhill from there. 

William was flying down and unfortunately had a fall, grazing his knee and hurting his elbow and hands. After a few minutes of crying and limping, he managed to regain his running feet and carried on down the hill, through part of the village and onto a path which led to the finishing field where he managed a sprint finish just ahead of me. 

As last year, we got a nice chunky medal and a traybake! William finished in 48 minutes which was 7 minutes off his time from last year, even with his fall. 

We headed back out to the finish and waited for the others to come in. Sam and Andy came back in about 59 minutes, which was slower than last year, but sometimes that's the way it goes with Sam! 

Unfortunately it was too windy and cold to enjoy the group picnic we'd had planned so we headed back to our campsite and spent a bit of time by Lake Windemere.