WILLEN HOSPICE 10KM 2016

I signed up for this race 2 days before as my mums friend had mentioned it was happening, I hadn’t seen any advertisement for it but luckily found a link for it.

There was a choice of 2km, 5km or 10km to sign up on the day with entry: £15, £8 for kids. It was their first event and was open to all abilities.

Route

The route was around Willen again, just around the two lakes, I had a look at the course on the day of the event but couldn’t quite work out how to make that extra 2km at the end.

The lakes are very flat, apart from the 2 aqueducts on the far side where you go down and up for a slight and small incline. This is a nice easy to follow route that makes a circuit around the two halves of Willen Lake.

The route was 2 laps of the 4km route, it feels open with good views across the lake and surrounding area and has several interesting things to look at as you run around such as the Peace Pagoda or the mini Stone Henge.

Race

There was a good turnout for the race, what seemed like over 100 people racing. We were greeted by music, cakes and other interactive stalls.

I managed to meet some of my instagram friends at this race, it was so nice to finally meet them after all of this time doing the same races but never meeting each other!

We had a warm up which was nice to have at the beginning of a race, not all races usually have this. The only downside was the enthusiasm of the person warming us up – didn’t really seem interested at all!

The race itself was nice, it was a beautiful day, very fresh and bright. Although it was 30th October it was very hot, I was just in a tshirt and boiling!

The route stayed on the paths until we came around for the second loop where you had to run on the grass to go around the finish if you were still running, it was still full of people cheering you on. I bumped into a lady I had run with previously on the NSPCC 10km and we chatted for the next route, we got to about 6km where she dropped back off. I found it easier to run when I was talking to someone as I really don’t enjoy running around Willen!

We started to come into the finish and I was getting a bit worried about the distance, the ladies I past asked me what I had on my watch and I was only going to get 5 miles in by the finish which I had been skeptical about before the race. We finished but only on 5 miles, I needed to go and get 8 miles that day so I didn’t mind finishing the last bit.

I bumped into the lady who I had run with before and her husband had won the race, apparently we were meant to do another smaller lap but this was not said or shown to us. The Hospice did apologise afterwards (I think there was a miscommunication about it) and said they were going to adjust our times.

I thought it was a nice race, a friendly atmosphere for a good cause.

I finished off the day by running another 3 miles to get it up to 8.