Folkestone Santa Fun Run 2014 Report

Saturdays, for me, are traditionally long run days, even if my long runs do seem long ago in the past. However, Fridays are still usually alcohol-free days but not last Friday, oh no. A friend had organised a local pub crawl and seeing as a local pub crawl was my idea in the first place, I sort of had to go, didn’t I? Although the crawl only crawled through two pubs and I swear I only had a few pints of lager, I had no idea how or when I got home and didn’t get up until 4:30pm the next day. This meant my Saturday night involved nothing more exciting than sitting at home on my own with my cat, drinking hot chocolate, like the old spinster of the parish, despite living directly across the road from a pub. On the upside though, this also meant that while I was not in the pub ruining any chances of seeing Sunday morning but sitting at home browsing Facebook instead, I saw a friend mention a Santa Fun Run taking place the next day.  It was only a few miles away (countryside miles, that is. In the countryside, if something is 15 miles away, you can be there in 20 minutes. In London, if something is 15 miles away, it’s a day trip with possibly an overnight stay). Bonus. It also didn’t start until the civilised time of 11.30. Even bigger bonus. So I decided if I was up in time, then I’d go along. And up in time I was and Shaun agreed to drive me to Folkestone to take part with all the other people who had been sitting at home with their cats the night before and therefore weren’t too hungover for a little jog by the seaside.

Ho ho ho

Unlike last time I did a Santa run, Shaun decided not to join in because ‘I’m not doing any races this year’ (despite me pointing out that a bunch of people running around in Santa suits could hardly be described as a race). But, just like last time I did a Santa run, when we left the house, it was minus-something Celsius but I remembered the Santa suits were warm and the hat keeps your ears cosy, which is just as well as, although one of the incidental benefits of earphones – aside from their more obvious main purpose – are that they keep the wind out of your ears, they don’t exactly keep your ears warm when it’s minus-something Celsius outside.

We got to Folkestone in plenty of time to spend some time drinking hot chocolate in Costa Coffee and using their toilets to change into my Santa suit (sorry to anyone who was waiting outside, bursting for a wee) and off I went to the start line.

Running in a Santa suit surrounded by others in Santa suits is fun, as anyone who’s done it can tell you. It’s only fun for about three minutes though and then it’s too hot and uncomfortable. Although I didn’t have the beard on my face but hung around my neck, that got thrown in the first bin I saw and the sleeves soon got rolled up. Then rolled back down when I walked up the never-ending hill. Had I known, however, that not long after the never-ending hill would be the end, I might have made more of an effort and not walked so much. But because the website said the route would be approximately 5km and the entry form said approximately 6km, I was expecting the run to be roughly somewhere in between – say, 5.5km exactly – when I got to the end at just 2.85 miles (which even with my shoddy maths skillz is obviously quite short of 5km), I was slightly perturbed. Although not as perturbed as the man Shaun told me should have won but didn’t because someone took a short cut and crossed the line before the man who should have won. But it’s a charity fun run and not to be taken too seriously and I did get some bling at the end and I only run for bling, after all.

Will run for bling

Well, bling and beer and burgers.

Will run for burgers

(Okay, it’s wine but I was going with the alliteration thing.)