Got up early to beat any traffic, and got into the office, where we had agreed to meet up and change into our Santa outfits.
It was absolutely chucking it down with rain. I thought that it was going to be a complete washout. As I watched out of the office window I saw cars arriving one at a time in the various car-parks around the area. From out of each car clambered at least three Santas. Those that weren't dressed for the occasion opened up the boot, pulled out a sack and changed into their costume on the spot.
Soon a red-clad crowd was forming in front of the Liver Buildings. (One or two die-hard Everton Santas were refusing to wear red, and had all blue suits).
The other lads turned up, so we got changed and went to join the growing crowd.
The rain had eased off by then. Took a few photo's, then at 09:30 precisely we found ourselves shuffling towards the start line at Mann Island. A big cheer, a chorus of "Merry Christmas!" and we were off.
It's a Fun Run, rather than a race. Since I'd done absolutely no training whatsoever I'd decided from the outset that I wasn't going to push myself too hard. One of the lads in the office regularly runs marathons, so I thought that there was no point in trying to keep up with him.
Having said that, we pushed ahead a bit early on, until we got to a spot where the crowd had thinned out a bit, then settled down into a gentle jogging pace. There were some stages where you couldn't do anything but walk, due to the number of Santas in front, but we managed to complete most of the 3.1 miles running, rather than walking.
I took a lot of photos en-route. At one point I ran ahead a bit, then turned to take some snaps of our "team". Couldn't tell one Santa from another when I turned round.
It felt rather surreal running down the middle of the road on familiar streets. Even more surreal being one of 6,000 Father Christmas's (that's how many finished the run).
The rain held off for the duration of the run, the sun even came through the clouds for a bit. Not that this helped much - a Santa Suit gets pretty warm. Better than being wet through though - I suspect that my skin would have been dyed red if we'd got a soaking. I've probably caught some sort of Industrial disease from breathing through the artificial fibres of the beard.
Worst bit was as we neared the end, we knew that we would finish on Castle Street, but we kept having to take a 'Dogs Leg' every time the street came into view.
Our team of 4 had split into two groups of two by the time we got to the last few streets. Our marathon runner crossed the finish line first, but was beaten by myself and his brother to the free T-shirts and goody-bags.
Back to the office to get changed - although our marathon runner insisted on staying in costume for the rest of the day. We finished off by replacing lost fluids in the Pig & Whistle.
Observations made in the pub.
1. Today would have been a good day to pull off a bank robbery.
2. At the end, we all looked like Dan Akroyd in "Trading Places".
Do it again next year? I reckon that I will.
No comments:
Post a Comment