Last weekend saw a valiant effort from our North West planitgreen Team who took part in a 5K run for Starlight Children’s Foundation. The North West team had been training hard and fundraising harder with over £1,700 donated on their behalf so far.
Below is planitgreen team member, Dave S’s account of the run;
What a fantastic Day! Bit hot for a run mind you…
Everyone arrived early, keen to get started and after a few photos and some puzzling over the maps, we set off in the afternoon sunshine.
Leading the way were Derrick, Andy & Rosie and yours truly, closely followed by Steve, Dave H, Vanessa & Reece, Val & Mark and Patrick & Loraine.
Steve picked up a calf injury in the first half a mile but he battled on manfully albeit a little slower than anticipated.
By the time we had reached the second corner the pace setters had been established with Andy out in front, Derrick a close second followed by Rosie, with me lumbering along some distance behind.
The chasing pack started to thin out as the first hill took its toll. Reece decided to use doggy power but this didn’t go quite to plan with 2 dogs pulling in different directions and stopping to sniff lamp posts every 100 yards.
On the downslope Andy started to build up a big lead and disappeared over the horizon – surely he would take the gold medal?
Derrick was then held up by a bloke in a van asking for directions – ‘For flip’s sake, I’m trying to run here!’ – I think that’s what he said (I’ve no idea as I was miles behind at this point).
After what seemed like hours, I arrived at the finish to be cheered on by our supporters – well, they were pointing and laughing anyway, which still counts. Waiting in the car park were Derrick and Rosie –‘Have you seen Andy?’ they said. ‘No, I thought he was in front?’
We waited another 10 minutes but still no sign of him, what could have happened?
We sent out a search party and discovered that Andy was enjoying himself so much that he had decided to do an extra 10K on top of what we were already doing. Either that or he had taken a wrong turn and got completely lost. I will leave you to make your own mind up on that one…
Back at the finish line Reece had somehow trained up the dogs to both run in the same direction at the same time and was powering along at a decent pace.
Andy finally made it back after doing a u-turn, closely followed by Vanessa, Dave H, Steve, Loraine, Mark, Patrick and Val. All looking remarkably unaffected by their efforts in the unexpected northern heat.
The Official Results
| 1st | Derrick ‘Dynamo’ Brown | 31:35 |
| 2nd | Rocket Rosie | 31:41 |
| 3rd | Dynamite Dave | 32:08 |
| 4th | Rapid Reece ‘Cesar’ Sanford | 39:42 |
| 5th | Andy ‘Sat Nav’ Page | 44:58 |
| 6th | Nitrous Ness Sanford | 45:03 |
| 7th | Dave ‘Hurricane’ Harrison | 48:05 |
| 7th | Steve ‘TripAdvisor’ Jones | 48:05 |
| 9th | Loraine ‘Leg it’ Mckoy | 54:00 |
| 10th | Mark the Machine | 60:02 |
| 11th | Patrick ‘Ice Man’ Mckoy | 60:05 |
| 11th | Val ‘Velocity’ Keegan | 60:05 |
At the last count the North West Team have raised £1707.50 (inc gift aid), massive thanks and much appreciation to everyone who took part. A special thanks must also go to everyone who sponsored the team.
Well done everyone!!
