Well, last week was a busy one and I’ve only just got round to writing it up.

Apart from Park Run I’ve never run a 5k race before.  Just jumped straight to 10ks and Marathon running.  So I decided to throw a few 5k races into the mix.  Just to keep things interesting.

The first was the Sri Chimnoy 5k run at Eastville Park run by the Sri Chimnoy Marathon Team on the Peace Mile loop.  It was handy as right round the corner from family and only cost £5 for a club runner to enter.  It was a gloriously sunny evening with bugs twittering around in the air.  I kept hydrated with my favorite Lucazade Sports drink.  It was another evening run starting at 7:15 pm so I made sure I ate well during the day and had my last snack before leaving the office.

A nice shot of me running and looking like my workouts are paying off;

It was a fantastic evening for the club as we won a bunch of medals for different age groups.  I finished in 27 minutes 2 seconds.

Next up was the Rainbow Run 5k at the Downs which is round the corner from where I live so again very handy location.  It cost £12.50 to enter.  Anna and I ran to the start line which gave me a chance to warm up.  I enjoyed the group warm up which when I joined was jumping along to Frozen Let It Go.

I started and the race in white but got gradually more coloured up with colour stations chucking the stuff at you; orange, yellow, green, pink, blue.  I used it to monitor intervals.  I reminded myself to have fun on this one and danced around, enjoyed the drums and bass bands and cheerleaders.  I twas a brilliant atmosphere.  Anna took some great photographs of me running this one.

I was glad for the sunglasses as the stuff does literally get everywhere. It’s also wise to take a breath before entering the colour cloud as otherwise you’ll be coughing through the next interval!  The medal was small but nice and bright.

The hard part was getting the colour off though.  Took about half an hour in the shower and I was still walking around with a green chin for the rest of the day.  I finished this one in 27 minutes 32 seconds.  Not bad considering the aim was to have fun I thought I’d be slower!

Sunday morning was a rest day with a trip to Stonehenge to see the Solstice rise with Steven and our friend Joe (also a fellow runner).  So a happy late Summer Solstice and hope everyone’s had a good week running.

Next up; Women’s Running 10k at Blaise Castle on Sunday.

Namaste,

Happy Running,

Eleanor