Halloween 5 Nite run....I hear drumming in the woods......

Last night at 8pm I took part in the Halloween 5 Nite run held at the Wokingham Waterside Centre on the Thames Valley Park near to Reading. For those that live in the area I would recommend it for next year!
 
I would like to thank in advance to this blog the race director, Cliff Hilton, for his mention about Challenge 1000 over the PA system and a big thank you to all the runners for the clap and cheer for me!!
 
Last night for Halloween in the South East we had windy and rainy conditions. I was so pleased to see this did not dampen the spirits of any of the runners, the marshals or the race organisers.
 
Lining up by the river, with the swans waiting and being directed back into the water by marshals was pretty spooky.


Spooooky!

I liked the creativity of the decoration of the race HQ too. This race is really in the spirit of Halloween and I felt like a child again. Out in the wind and rain, with scary music playing and people around me all dressed up. And of course well done to all those who carved the magnificent pumpkins, they were brilliant!

 



The race itself was ideal for Halloween with the track marked by glow sticks and marshals. Also while running around in the woods there was a group of people drumming and making spooky noises, and you could hear yourself running closer and closer to it. It was very dramatic and gave a real boost to the run.

 

For all the drummers who were stood in the woods in the cold and the wet, hats off to you. Thank you very much. From what I could hear other runners around me were commenting on the drumming, they really liked it too! I also really liked the ghosts in the trees. I couldn't stop to take a picture...as it was pretty damn wet and I wanted to get back to the lovely pumpkin soup waiting for runners back at HQ!

 

I finished the race feeling incredibly childish, wet, muddy, worn out and on a high. Thank you to Cliff for checking I had made it. That I certainly did. I really enjoyed the warm pumpkin soup. I was so cold and it warmed me up straight away.

 

It was nice to stand with all the other finishers eating soup and cheering the other runners coming in. Seeing the long trail of headlamps arriving from the distance was rather surreal!

 

All in all this race was great fun. I would love to come back next year for another run in the dark!

 

I am about 940km through my 1000km challenge now. So Challenge 1000 is nearly over. However people can of course still sponsor me, and it would mean so much to me if you could.

 

Happy Halloween!

 

 

 

 

Trick or Treat?!

On Wednesday 31^st October I will kindly be a guest at the Halloween 5 nite run at Water Meadow, Thames Valley Park in Reading. I am looking forward to it!

It’s a 5km course in the dark, dressing up is allowed so I may add a few little Halloween themed items to my running gear. I also have to wear a head torch so I can see where I am going, which is wise as over the past few weeks I have been rather clumsy.

On a run last week I manage to badly hurt my right knee by whacking it on a gate and then later on in the run I fell over, landing on my left knee and also getting a cut from a flint on my palm. I have to say the bruising on my knees left me limping for quite a few days after.

I am about 900km through the 1000km now, so I am approaching the final stages of Challenge 1000.

I have had a good think about where I have run, and used the very handy world of Google mapping to create a Challenge 1000 map of each location that I have run across the UK and Europe for Challenge 1000 so far.

You can tell I live in the South East as a lot of my runs are based around that area. However I have made efforts to branch out to other areas of the country, and over the next few months I am going to attempt to do a little more branching out.

The season is changing, the leaves are becoming bare and the temperature is dropping. It is definitely pretty windy at the moment too....and rainy. Although I have managed not to get soaked. I think the wettest run I did this year was at Rockingham in the summer!  It is time however to get in some lovely autumn runs and hopefully take some pretty photos.

If you have suggestions of any locations or runs you have done that look particularly beautiful In Autumn please tweet me VictoriaKYoung  or leave a comment at the bottom of this blog post J

Thank you!!!