Race: Glow in the park
Distance: 5k
Date: 27th October
Supporting Runners: Jemma Love, Rachel McCourty, Christa Ntuli, Matt McCourty, Darren Nadin
Fundraising to date: £8,162
Finishing Time: 00:36:03

As I sit here ready to take off for NYC, flight socks at the ready (as recommended by physio) – I realise I now have 7 hours on this flight to whack out the blog for race number 29 – the glow in the park 5k.

This week has been a hectic one – not one you’d expect on the lead up to a marathon. A last min trip to London on Monday for work meant no last bits of mileage and a few more drinks just to ruin sober October even more.

Mum, Andy and Mr Chips came over last night for some pizza and packing. Poor Mr Chips had no idea he was about to be shipped off to our friend, Matt’s as unfortunately doggos aren’t invited to New York.

I packed my running kit in hand luggage incase something like lost baggage happens and shoved all sorts of clothes in the main case as I’ve been told “layering” is good for weather in the Big Apple. (Oh by the way, I’ve never been before, so this trip is double exciting – what better way to see a new city than to run 26.2 miles around it hey)

We discussed some plans (finally) after putting it off for weeks. With the marathon being the main focus, we haven’t even discussed what to do when we are there. Just walk around, eat loads of food and catch up with some friends who are also there – Danny and Laura.

In the past week, donations have been flooding in and I’ve received some really nice cards, letters and messages. It’s really put it into perspective what I’ve done over the past year. We are almost at £10k in donations which is double what I first hoped we would get to. Thank you to everyone ❤️❤️

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Glow in the park 5k

But before all of this packing and last min purchasing of running socks and energy gels, there was race number 29. The big penultimate fun race of them all. The glow in the park 5k.

This race has been booked for a while and was a bit of a last race party more than a serious run.

The 5k took place in Heaton Park – I’ve never been to this park before this challenge and I have now been at least 5 times.

I expected a similar number of runners to the dog jog or the 10k I had done there. Once again, I was wrong. 3,000+ runners all dressed head to toe in glow in the park attire. Tutus, glow sticks, head torches, fluorescent clothing. The lot.

As Jemma and I were ‘glowing up’ in the car, Jemma went a bit overboard on the glow stick jewellery and turned to me straight in the face saying “is this too much”, as if she’d just clashed bright lipstick with the wrong kind of outfit or something. It was quite lol.

Because this was the penultimate race, there were a few of us signed up. And it was very difficult to find everyone at the start line with 10mins to go. “I’m the one wearing pink with the head torch on by the start line” didn’t quite cut it.

There was Darren, Jemma, Rachel, Matt, Christa and 2 of Matt and Rachel’s close friends – all jumping around to the pre glow warm up, freezing our arses off.

The race was at 7:30pm which is a first for evening races out of the whole challenge.

There were 5 zones in the race:

• Glow zone
• Light zone
• Foam zone
• Heat zone
• Something else I can’t remember zone

The race was 2 laps of the route so you got to experience all of the zones twice – not so fun after the first tome of running through the “glow zone” which was essentially freezing cold coloured water rather than glow paint.

Jemma, Christa and I were talking about the reasons for doing the race and I asked Christa “what would Adam actually think of us right now doing this” – we both laughed and agreed he’d be looking around wondering what everyone was doing there. Dressed up like that running around a park just for fun. “But why is everyone here” If you knew him, you’d know the silly things he’d be saying.

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We crossed the finish line really cold at this point and headed straight to the bar. We picked up our glow medal and took in the amount of people and the effort the organisers had gone to to make this 5k a pretty huge event. It was very well organised and I’d recommend for a bit of a laugh.

It was also lovely to see Christa’s mum, brother and his girlfriend at the finish line as a final bit of support for 30for30 and got this cute pic:

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Anyway, our flight was delayed a bit and I’ve managed to complete this blog quicker than I thought, so instead of waiting until I’m in NYC and far too excited to post, here it is!

If you’d like to help push us to £10k then please visit: https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/EmmaBramwell2

Au revoir!