Santa Dash - 2015

Hello biog lovers.

Ok, so it's the only time I will don a Santa suit, and to sort of celebrate Christmas in November!  It's way to early to start the Christmas celebrations, but Bromley Santa Dash organise this for the end of November!

This year I had too little dudes to  run after!  My grandson and his 'brother' (my step-grandson sort of......hint hint Jay!) They were both looking forward to it.  So after church I came back and started to get ready.  The Old Boy was off today as well and he was taking me to Bromley to meet up the the young dudes.

On the drive down there I couldn't see any Santa's.  I am sure last year I saw so many driving down there it looked like I fell into some sort of Santa Land.  We arrived at the place where I said we would meet my daughter and pick up the two dudes it saves her from pushing the buggy back up the hill to the start!

The Old Boy drove down the hill to the Queen's Mead Gardens at the bottom of the hill. On the way I saw batches of Santas, clumps of Santas, sack loads of Santas.  It was definitely on then!  He dropped us off near to the start and me and the boys walked over to where the start was going to be.  The music was already well underway, there were at least, maybe a hundred Santas there already.  Big ones, short ones, some with beards little ones with out.  There were different Santa outfits as some had made that little be extra effort and there were Christmas jumpers on the pooches as well has one little fellow in full Santa outfit!

Annie was there ready to do her warm up routine.  Littlest dude explaining to bigger little dude about how to do it all, the 'Yo, ho, ho's', cooking and stuffing the turkey and the hanging of the Christmas decorations.  All little drills and exercises to get us warmed up before we start our 2k dash to the top.

The rain held off, with just a smidgen of a threat in the air, but I think there was just too much happiness and yo, ho, hoing to let the rain come down.  It was soon ready to start. 3, 2, 1 GO!  The boys just ran off!  I had to call them back a bit, after all there are so many Santas their size I just didn't want to lose them.

I think the boys would have preferred to be a little further to the start, but they felt good as they passed and got between and overtook some of the Santas in front of them.  We nearly finished the lap of the green and my little dude's legs was 'hurting' him.  So we had just a little walk and I tried to get an 'action' shot of them but just as I was about to take it, they decided to run again!

We passed the the start line again ready to just run to the road and start our hill ascent!  I pointed out to the little fellows all those Santa's that were behind us still.  This pleased them,  There was no way they was going to be last!  That would just be a catastrophe!  They both found some extra little bit of fire inside themselves as they tried to squeeze pass the Santas on the path that got into the park.  But this had just become a Santa Jam!  There was no one squeezing pass any Santas here and they would just have to wait to get out of the bottle neck.

The play park wasn't very tempting for them this time around as they wanted to pass as many Santa's as they could before they get to the finish.  The hill started to have and affect on my little dude, thank goodness, as I was struggling a bit trying to keep up with the bigger little dude!  He was fast, he wanted to win the thing I think! I had to keep an eye on him and keep an eye on little dude behind me.

But once we were at the top, the roar of the crowd (which actually seemed not as big as last year) seemed to spur both the boys on.  I told them to run together, I let them get in front of me.  There was a big space in front and I thought I would be goo to let them 'off the leash' a bit.  They were then like a couple of whippets! I really had to run quite fast to make sure that I didn't lose them once we got to the finish!  They were even more encouraged when they saw our lot, little dudes mum, bigger little dudes baby brother and granddad!  Cheering them on from the side!

We got our medals and a bottle of water feeling that we deserved that.  I must add thought, the 'medals' this year, well, they are some what disappointing!  For the last three years they have been made of metal, with the last two years being 'bauble' shaped so that you can hang it on your Christmas tree. They made a clanking sound when you added them to all your other medals, or when you give a big hug to other medal wearers! This plastic thing, well, I have no words to say really,  maybe I am being picky, or maybe to greedy, but this, no. this wasn't a 'medal' its a ribbon with a plastic fob [off] a key ring maybe!? I hope they saved a bit more money to give to the charity, but I wouldn't have minded paying just a pound extra for that lovely medal we had last year!

A good point of the day

was meeting the Grinch!  He wasn't as horrible as we thought!

So the camera must have moved! But it is us! :-)