Thursday 31 October (of course 😂)

By Tinks 🧚🏻

Coach Annette saw this event advertised back in September and shared the link with our HH team.  It also appeared by way of H&V on the monthly race email shared to all.

A few brave souls signed up to a spooktacular evening, running 5 miles in the dark in fancy dress (not essential bit came with a 5 minute time penalty) around Friston Forest and Litlington.

Julie Deakin 🍌, Oli P 💷, Annette 💚, Victoria 👮🏻‍♀️, Charlie 👩🏻‍⚕️, Becky  💖 and myself 🧚🏻 donned tutus, pumpkin capes, witches hats 🧙‍♀️ and skeleton 💀 onesies for a 7pm start at the Plough and Harrow pub 🍺 (many beachy folk will know where this is)

After a pre-race brief in the presence of a variety of scary outfits including the grim reaper, the fancy dress was judged with the top prize a meal for the winner which was won by ‘the day of the dead’ although slightly biased we think but Charlie was robbed after her hard efforts sticking bone transfers (good job she knows where they all go 😂) to her leggings and jumper not to mention her amazing face paint 💀- next year Charlie 🏆

Amongst the race brief we were handed a paper version of route directions for those who had not downloaded it before hand to watches ⌚️ and phones 📱.  With torches on and a terrifying shriek we were off into the darkness, straight up an enormous hill and into the forest.

With ghouls and ghosts planted in the trees and a few ‘do not enters’ the route was primarily led by our beautiful head coach Annette – it was her favourite route in the pandemic.  With some steep climbs, long descents, gravel, mud and puddles, in the blink of an eye we were back at the pub, presented with a pumpkin 🎃 medal and ordering our free drinks at the bar (all included in the bargain price of £16)

Some little monkey 🐒 had let it out the bag that it happened to be my birthday 🎈 the next day (all saints day of course 😇 🫢) Charlie had baked the most amazing fiendish cupcakes 🎃, I was spoilt with a lovely signed card which depicted the castle in the town where I grew up in Launceston, Cornwall (and where I sampled many a diamond white cider 😂) and was showered with perfect gifts designed for runners ❤️ We all enjoyed bowls of cheesy chips 🍟 🧀 before heading home to wash off all the fake blood 🩸

We smiled all the way home after a fabulous evening doing something slightly different.  Our fellow ghouls, Katy Reed and Hannah sadly couldn’t make it but were with us in spirit and we will most certainly be back next year.