Run Crawley Run

On Sunday 18th October, ’09 Crawley Happy Times donned their new t-shirts and set off for K2 Leisure Centre for the St. Catherine’s Hospice 10k.

Two teams were entered by Crawley Happy Times making eight runners altogether. They joined the rest of the entrants at the start line at 10:30 on a bright and warm Sunday morning. Everyone looked excited and slightly nervous, then the gun went ‘bang’ and we were off.

After a lap on the K2 track we then left the stadium and went around Tilgate forest, over the M23 and then back again via a different route leading back to the K2 stadium.

We had a mixture of talent in the two teams entered. We had Daniel Manville who has run half marathons in the past (and did extremely well), Danielle James who is a young fit lady who has some running experience and Jennifer Griffiths who is a fitness instructor. They all did extremely well on CHT’s behalf. Then we had Shelley Fagence-Traynor, Michelle James, Emma James, Amanda Toyne and Jade Downey who were not so experienced although 100% effort was shown. 

The encouragement from the other participants and the race officials standing at check points along the way, was immense. It was this encouragement that kept us all going. Daniel was way ahead with Danielle and Jennifer hot on his heals. Shelley, Michelle, Emma and Amanda decided to stick together on the way round and Jade was not far behind. Shelley was suffering from a bad bout of flu but managed to keep going, even running some of the way

St. Catherine’s Hospice is such a great cause. Requiring around five million pounds to keep up the much needed work they do for terminally ill people. All of which is donated in some form or another. St. Catherine’s give so much back to the community too. They hold many fund raising events which are fun and entertaining for all entrants and the community alike. If you have a fund raising idea, then don’t hesitate to contact any of the amazing staff members on 01293 447333 who will be happy to help you in every way possible.

So, the end of the run was in sight, and the legs were starting to feel like jelly. We entered the K2 track on our last few killometers and were greeted with a loud round of applause from the bystanders who had patiently waited for us stragglers to finish. We were even greeted by the Worshipful the Mayor Brenda Burgess and her wonderful husband Bob Burgess. The last few steps seemed like an eternity but the finish line was in sight and we all made a last deperate dash……and we were done! We were greeted by our families who looked on so proudly as we all gasped for breath and composure. We were given our medals by St. Catherines which we have all placed in plain view of all visitors to our homes

 

Crawley Happy Times would like to extend their congratulations to every one who entered. As Shelley’s youngest son said, “it’s not about winning Mum, it’s about taking part”. He is so right! If you feel you would like to be part of this next year either as an individual or as a team, please call Catherine Boulter of St. Catherine’s Hospice on 01293 447364 for further information. We are still accepting sponsors, so if you feel the need to contribute, please contact Shelley on 01293 572182 or email shelley@crawleyhappytimes.co.uk

You can view the full results here…

 

A special thank you goes to the eight individuals who took part as the Crawley Happy Times team and a thank you to Paul Sheldrake of Creative Vision Promotions for supplying the t-shirts which were wonderful! Roll on next year xx

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 16:34 and is filed under Community, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.