Race for Life Lancaster 2014

Sunday was overcast but hot as my son and I headed to Lancaster University for our race for life. We knew we were in the right place with the sea of pink! It was a long walk from the car parking but we knew we were on the right track:

It was only when we turned the last corner we realised how popular this event was:

It was a buzzing atmosphere as we gathered for the warm up and the Cancer Slam dance:

We lined up at the front of the joggers section as previous experience showed this was the safest place to start! My son had agreed that we wouldn't go off too fast this time (he learned from his previous long race) and he stuck to it. We ran together for the first section of the race and he even lagged behind me for a while. If he wanted to walk a while up the steep hill I was happy with that.

It was a hot day even without the sun. I was glad to be carrying water with me and sipped on it regularly as I went. When we reached the top of the hill my son found a whole new gear and leg action and suddenly went past me and left me behind... I wasn't going to push myself in the heat so had to just let his green t-shirt get further into the distance and finally out of sight..

We had to loop around the campus and crossed over the people walking the course as we went through the underpass for the second time. It was such a relief to get to the final descent from the campus back to the finish line it seemed a long way around the final field though. I did manage to find enough left in the tank to up my pace on the home straight. My son was waiting to greet me having crossed the line apparently at least 3 minutes before me:

He had managed it so much better this time and I am so proud of him at 7! He then took a snap of me showing how hot and red I got completing 5 km in 33 minutes and 50 seconds:

Then fortified by a cold drink and ice cream we went to support the people still finishing the race. There were some wonderful sights including dogs joining the pink fest:

There were also a couple of bonkers teens who had space hoppered most of the way around:

Its a great event for all ages and there were some pretty small kids running along that finishing straight:

The solidarity of the women walking together as teams obviously supporting each other by holding hands was pretty evocative:

Seeing several generations of one family together also showed what this event means to people:

We are aiming to raise a £100 for our efforts and need a bit more sponsorship to achieve this! It's great to combine exercise, quality time with my son and charity fund raising. Nice to see that I did try hard though: