Fell Foot Park Night Run

Late afternoon on Saturday we headed over to the National Trust's Fell Foot Park to take part in their first ever night run. It had been an especially wet day and poor Andy and Sam got a soaking at parkrun (William nabbed an undercover volunteer position so we stayed dry!). Luckily by the time we arrived at Fell Foot the rain had stopped but there were still plenty of mud and puddles!

We met up with a friend and her son, registered and waited by the cafe for the other runners and for it to get dark as well! Sam was enjoying throwing leaves and stones into Lake Windermere and William was enjoying running about. Slowly over the next hour the light faded and we started getting our head torches on, pinning numbers and snapping our glow sticks! We also joined together 2 sets of Aldi running lights and strapped them round the boys' middles so we could see them better in the dark.

I liked this photo, which was posted into the Fell Foot Night Run event page on Facebook. You can just see Andy holding Sam upside down and then William in the centre with his running lights! 

There were two runs on that evening, the 7k Adventurer and the 3k Explorer. Due to their age the boys weren't allowed to do the longer run and obviously would need supervision so we all ran the Explorer run. Andy ran with Sam and I ran with William. After the pre-run briefing the Adventurer group set off and then shortly after we set off too!

We soon found out just how wet the ground was as we splashed through some very big puddles. I had to laugh when I heard William (age 6) say 'this is my worst nightmare' as he isn't fond of mud or getting his feet wet but he soon got over it and was running really well. Sam did an amazing job. He'd already had a brilliant parkrun in the morning (and was only 20 seconds off a PB) and he kept up a really good pace for this as well, averaging 7.30 minutes/km. He loves nothing better than running through mud and water so managed to get well ahead of William.

It was all over in less than half an hour. Sam came in 25th out of 38 and finished in 24.22 and William came in 31st finishing in 25.45. We all received a glow in the dark National Trust medal and a re-usable goody bag with a wrist band and water bottle.

It was well worth coming out on a damp night in November, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and would definitely do this again next year.

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.

Yarrow River Splash 10k and Fun Run

The weekend after my half marathon debut we headed over to Chorley to take part in a trail run organised by Mad Bull Events. Andy signed up to the 10k (there was a 5k option too) and I had signed the boys up for the 1 mile fun run.

We arrived at Chorley in good time to collect running numbers from the HQ in the Flaming Grill pub. We had at least half an hour to wait before heading to the start area in the park down the road so we had a sit down in the pub and watched everyone else come through. William, as usual, managed to make friends with another little boy whilst we were waiting and they were happily chatting to one another.

We headed to the start a little before 9am as that was when the children's run set off. I was running with William and Andy ran with Sam. The run started and William flew down the path through the park. We reached a gate that we had to go around and that led us onto a section of grass. It was very wet and our feet were soaked in seconds. William kept running though, having been reassured that we had spare shoes and socks in the car! A sharp turn half way in saw us head back the way we came but through the woods this time. I just caught sight of Andy and Sam a little ways behind us and it looked like Sam was having a fab run.

William flew through the woods and loved it when we came across a huge fallen log that we had to climb over. He soon picked up the pace again and all of a sudden we were back out on the path and headed to the finish. He received his medal and immediately asked if we could go round again! We walked over to the path and cheered on Sam as he came in shortly afterwards. I think the trail element of the run must be very appealing to little boys!

Shortly after the children's run it was Andy's turn to set off.

He already had wet feet from the grass so wasn't too worried about the river crossings that were coming up! One ended up being only ankle deep but the other was up to his knees. He arrived back in 1hr 5min and collected his medal and tech t-shirt. He said it was a hard run but fun. The only possible drawback for him was that there was no water station (although from looking at the photos afterwards it's entirely possible that a few people had a mouthful of river water when they fell over at the crossing!).

Needless to say we all had a change of shoes when we got back to the car, feeling strangely satisfied peeling our socks off! We all agreed it was well worth the trip to Chorley, the run itself was great and the medal and tech t-shirt made it extremely good value for the registration fee. The boys absolutely loved the fun run so I can see us heading back for next year's run!

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. 

Petzl Night Runner - Grizedale 10k and 1k Kids Trail Run

Saturday was a bit of a busy day for running. We went to parkrun in the morning. It was a beautiful morning for it, sunny and the wind had completely dropped so it felt warmer than the 1 degree it actually was! Sam ended up not wanting to join in so he and Andy watched whilst William and I ran the course. Then we all went along to the cafe afterwards for hot chocolate, cake and in the boys' case, ice cream (as you do in February!).

We had a break then for the afternoon and headed out again at 4pm to Grizedale Forest for a night trail run, organised by Epic Events. The sun was just beginning to get low as we arrived and it was feeling very cold. We registered the boys for the free 1k trail fun run and Andy got his running number. He must have been eager to sign up for this one as he got number 1! The boys were given special glow necklaces to wear on the run. We'd already dressed them in hi-vis jackets so we could keep an eye on them round the play area which worked a treat!

The next hour was spent watching the kids play, sorting out head torches and pinning numbers/putting timing anklets on.

We were then called over to the start line with the boys as the fun run was half an hour ahead of the main run, meaning parents could join in with their kids which was great. We were treated to a warm up song with dance moves provided by Mr Fox who then made a hasty retreat when the kids were set off running after him!

Keeping an eye out for Mr Fox at the finish!

William loved the dancing and set off at a great pace, hoping to catch that fox! He set off so fast in fact that I was struggling to keep up with him and ended up with my foot in a huge puddle! Sam giggled his way around the course, and got 2 big hugs off Mr Fox so he was a happy boy.  Both boys received a fab medal with Trail Kidz Finisher engraved on it. William is very proud and has been showing it off ever since.

Just after the children finished their run, the 10k runners were called to the start line.

Head torches were lit and they were soon off. Andy described it as tough going, quite hilly in the first half but he thoroughly enjoyed it. He sprinted through the finish with our friend who he'd run with. His finish time was 1.09.21 and he came in 214th out of a field of 263. He has a new medal and a new tech t-shirt to add to his collection!

 

Definitely a run to remember! I'm so glad we took part. Both the 10k and children's race were well organised and a brilliant experience.