A fun weekend

This weekend has been action packed and we are all pretty tired this Sunday evening.

Saturday morning started as it usually does for me these days with a parkrun. I've been going regularly since the marathon, and my time has gradually improved each week from 26m02s on 27th April to 25m10s this weekend. My 5K PB is only about 40 seconds faster, so I hope I'll keep getting closer to that every week.

The day turned out to be quite sunny, and even warm enough to sunbathe when the clouds weren't spoiling things. We got together with a group of the kids' school friends in the afternoon and went to a local park. Activities included football and frisby (everyone), playing at the playground (children), and sitting in the sun chatting (grown-ups).

After the walk home, we had jacket potatoes and watched the final episode of this series of Doctor Who - a perfect evening for all the family!

Then today I had read about a nearby fun run. It was in a village about 14 miles away, and there was a children's 1K, and a 5K and 10K. I was thinking about doing the 10K, and looking at the last year's results, it seemed a pretty small field so I thought I had a good chance of a top 3 place among the females. However, it turned out that the children's race was at the same time as the main races and after some pondering, I decided I'd rather see the kids run than race myself for a change.

I'm glad I made that decision. Robbie wanted to run by himself, but I ran with Emma, juist to make sure she knew where to go and didn't fall over or stop. They did really well.

Ready to run!

It started in a cricket field, and Robbie shot off like a rocket, although I'd warned him not to go too fast at the start! Most of the others did too though. We had to run around the edge of the field before going out along a lane, then turning round and coming back to finish in the field. However, the boys at the start ran inside the cones used to mark the route, and I'm not sure any of us ran a whole 1K!

...and they're off...

After a fast start, Robbie slowed down and we caught him up. At the halfway point there was a table with cups of water, and the children were all stopping for a good break and a drink - it made me laugh to see how uncompetitive they were compared to adults!

As we came back, we seemed to be in front of most of the runners. Emma kept running really fast and I was waiting for her to stop and walk, but she didn't, and she pulled ahead of Robbie for a while. Then she looked back and held her hand out for me and ran back to me - I don't know why, she was doing fine on her own!

Last 200 metres

We got into the field and I kept shouting at the kids to keep going with the promise of a cake at the end. They sped up, and we crossed the line close together, Robbie just a few steps in front of Emma.

Approaching the finish

They got a quite nice medal at the end, and I think Emma was one of the faster girls. Unfortunately later, they only announced the 3 winning boys without mention of the girls, and the results aren't on the website yet. The kids said they really enjoyed it though, so that was the main thing.

Medals!

Finally this afternoon, we went for a swim. Pete and Robbie cycled the 3 miles to the pool and 3 miles back, so Robbie really has done a triathlon today! He should sleep well tonight. We had a good swim and did some time trials up and down the pool to tire ourselves out even more.

Next week I'm working every day, so I'll find it hard to fit in much exercise - lucky I banked so much this weekend!