#CountryKids Fell Running Association Junior Championships Todd Cragg

This Sunday saw the opening race for this year's Fell Running Association Junior Championships at Ambleside. My son hadn't taken part in previous years so he decided to give it a go this year. All the races had to cross the historic Miller Bridge from Rothay Park:

There were 6 different age categories and each route was well marked and marshalled. My son and I walked his route so he knew where he was going and I could choose from filming locations.  The under 9 race (for 6 years and over) was just for 1 km and they went up the tarmac hill and back down again:

I captured their race from a few 100 metres below their turn. There were some scary speeds as they raced back down past me:

Fell Running Challenge #2 Kendal Castle

My son was very pleased to have had over 100 views of the two versions of his first fell running film in a week! So we headed down the road to Kendal Castle to film our second one. It was bitterly cold but no snow except in the distance as he ran up, around and down at the castle:

#CountryKids All England Stone Skimming Championships

After Parkrun yesterday my son decided he wanted to enter the All England Stone Skimming Championships which were being held in the same park. There was quite a queue to sign up as the competition was open to all ages with no qualification. At £3 for an adult and £1 for an under 11 it was a well priced event too. Our first task was to choose from the selection of skimmers that the South Cumbria Rivers Trust had supplied:

Its all to do with the size of your hand and how they fit when you are preparing to throw them! Then we had to wait to take our turn at skimming and first of all we watched some of the seasoned experts; such as Ron Long The Old Tosser who has written an excellent post explaining how to skim stones.

Next up was Gareth Twamley who with his first stone broke the local record with an awesome 88m!!

The slightly choppy waters (and occasional straying waterfowl) weren't the ideal conditions for stone skimming:

ParkLives from Coca-Cola and Partners

Sponsored Post

Like many people I was very aware that Coca-Cola is involved in sport and sporting events through their sponsorship of global events such as the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup and the Rugby World Cup. In fact I won a trip to the London Olympics by writing this post about being an outdoor sporty family.

What I wasn't aware of until I went to the seminar before Blogfest was that they started working at the community grassroots level of sport with the launch of ParkLives in 2014 in partnership with local councils and sports charities. They wanted to piggy back on the success of the London 2012 Olympics to get people active in their own communities.

In 2014 they set up events in Birmingham, Newham and Newcastle which were so successful that they set up events this year in Glasgow, Manchester and Nottingham. This video gives a taste of what has being going on:

The great thing seems to be that there is something for all ages and its all free. For example today in Birmingham the programme included:

• Nordic Walking
• A led walk
• Tai Chi
• Zumba
• Family Fun

As a runner I am pleased to see that all the parks offer a range of running classes to suit all abilities:

• walk to run
• couch to 5 k
• active running
• 5k to 10k groups

I now need to work on persuading my local council to work in partnership with Coca-Cola to get ParkLives up here in Cumbria!

Our day at the Commonwealth Games Rugby 7s

A story best told in photos:

Our view

there was a lot of this

and this...