Monday 7 August 2017

Running In The Wilderness!

Hello Blog Lovers!

So this weekend was a bit different!  I am writing a blog but my blog is about the whole weekend of friends, fun, music, eating, and maybe the odd glass of beer!  From Friday early evening through to Monday morning I was one of those trendy people who go to festivals, I was with with Kirsty!  As you can imagine, I was pretty excited and apprehensive all at the same time!  I had been to a festival last year with Kirsty, so I knew exactly what to expect!  Those campbeds are not the most comfortable to sleep on, but according to hardened campers, it's 'A little bit of heaven' compared to sleeping on a mat on the floor!  So I guess I shouldn't moan so much,  I had company with me too, the ants were very curious and got up close and personal! And of course Kirsty was tons better company and some other great young people and their carers, nurses and doctors too.

Festival Spirit are the organisation that make it possible for young people to be able to experience a festival even though they have some huge life challenges!  They are a  "Charity providing the full festival experience to young people who would not normally be able to enjoy one due to life-limiting illness or disability"  they are an amazing group of people who make it possible for them to feel as safe and secure at a festival, a non profit organisation. Festivals are an experience that I think everyone should do at least once in their life, says she who swore she wouldn't ever going camping!  This was the second time I had been to a festival, camping with Festival Spirit, I went last year as well. An amazing bunch of people, Steve, Debs, Paul, Ross, Catrin, I am sure I am sure there were some others whose names escape me.  They made us feel so welcome and relaxed.  Everything was done, the tent put up, the floor down, the heating on, the little rooms all set out for the guests! Hospital beds for the guests, camp beds for the carers and nurses.  Of course this weekend wouldn't have been possible for Kirsty and me to go to if it wasn't for the wonderful people at St Christopher's young Adults.  They had done all the fund raising to be able to bring along 5 great people with their carers to be able to enjoy festivals!  It's all done on charity, fund raising, people like you and I giving money specifically to St. Christopher's Young Adults! (a little plug if you are not sure who you want to raise money for in your next race!)  I can't even imagine what the cost is to get them to a festival, last year we had a Jumbulance, and this year we had two minibuses, and a van, as well as to use the wonderful people of Festival Spirit to supply the marque,  the beds, the tickets, the electricity, the food, the cooking, the clearing up well, just about everything to make sure that we all had a great time!  I'm telling you, I can not 'big' St Christopher's and Festival Spirit up enough!

Anyway, I am guessing you are wondering why I am writing all this?  "Did she run?" "Is she just trying to make us all jel?" Well yes I did run, and I ran only because I was 'well jel' of all those wonderful pictures I had seen of my running buddies on the Facebook page which were of them all in their PWR shirts in exotic places, #pwrruntheworld is the hash tag they use!  But I was wondering how many of them had ran at a festival!

I wanted to keep it at parkrun time but as you can see, I was a little early! I can tell you, even though I had a camp bed I am not a very comfortable camper!  I like my bed, I like comfort! I like all the mod cons that come with 5 start hotels! So I didn't sleep very well and I was up at a sparrows fart to get ready.  After an on/off rainy evening to wake up to lovely sunshine was good, and I had a feeling that I did the right thing in only packing run pants and my PWR top!  Well, it is #pwrruntheworld! I have to show off my cub colours.  Although the sun was shining and we had blue skies the morning air gave me a little chill while I waited for the satellites to find me.  And then I was off, I had no idea how how big the Wilderness Festival grounds were but I was determined to run around the whole off it, and it was was 4 miles then so be it, and if it was only 1 mile then I would run three loops, as in a park run.

I set off for the site.  I hope you had noticed that I have already laid out one very good reason for it not being the most speediest of runs by the way!  I was very tired and very achy! The site is also a very uneven and bumpy ground. with cheeky little undulations, dips and rises! It's not my usual nice, flat park run! And of course I took a couple of pictures of the two main stages, this is the Atrium, Will Young was supposed to have turned up, but he was a no show!

The Atrium
Oh well, there were plenty of other great acts that were there! This was not far from where I started but already I was feeling tired!  But still, when do I ever not feel tired on a Saturday morning!  There was plenty to see, I was using this run as a little recce to tell Kirsty where everything will be.  I found the Chocolate Brownie stall!  The sun was shining brightly and as I ran around the site I was getting very warm.  I was also getting some "Hey, well done" from some of the other festival goes as they were on the forage for food and caffeine!

 I had ran around the whole site and got to the main stage, which was spitting distance to our camp site by the way,  and I was feeling quite pleased with myself.  I checked out my Garmin and realised I actually only had done 1.5 miles! Well, that answers the question of how many loops I shall be doing!  To be truthful I was feeling blimmin knackered, and again, I point you to point number 2 for me feeling pretty tired that morning, the fact the main stage was just 'over the road', it was pretty noisy! But of course, I couldn't not run a parkrun distance, could I, so I did a second loop, finding another little bit to look on site, and spying some other stalls I had not see on the first loop.  I investigated it and then carried on with my loop but I got slightly confused and missed a bit that I had done before and found a few more stalls that could be worth a visit when they opened!

I ended my run by going out the gate near by the Main Stage, this is me at the main stage by the way, it was huge!
Main stage, redder face,
but a better picture of this stage!
 The sound system on there was incredible! The Back Stage area was there too, which you could go in and party after the main events!  Yup, it truly was a noisy sleep, probably not great training for a 1k run let alone a 3k run.  Never mind, I am sure the beer could possibly help in that situation! Oh, yes, no.3 reason for feeling tired, but still, I guess 3 beers were not too much for the previous night!

So that was my Saturday run done, Petts Wood Runners, Run The World!  Not exotic, no sea and sand, although there was naked swimming in the lake (and no I did not do that!) but there was a music festival happening for the entire weekend, from the Friday till Monday morning!  I was knackared!

The girls and boys from St Christopher's and the carers were kept busy as they made sure that all the guys and girls with these life limiting conditions had a brilliant time, while the boys and girls from Festival Spirit kept us well nourished with cereals, fresh fruit salad and bacon and sausage rolls for breakfast, plus tea and cakes in the afternoon! Our evening meal was found out there, from the stalls on site.

Oh by the way, this was our home for a few days, and some pictures I took off the Spirit of Festival Facebook page of the way it all gets laid out.


I a sure we had a little bit more room this time, because
Kath, a St Christopher's nurse made a little table at the back
with a plastic box and a wood slatted top!
Kirsty with her scatchcards!


Oh, by the way, the acts that I managed to get to see were brilliant, Toots and the Maytals, and Grace Jones, plust Leanne Carroll singing Nina Simone songs!  Just brilliant.  Also a quick blast of a bluesy group on the Friday night was good, but we couldn't stay to see the end of that session.


Here this is a few of the pictures I took of the festival and a couple of pictures I 'nicked' with permission from Festival Spirit. I have a couple of shots of some of the team among my pictures, but if you click on either of the blue links at the top of this blog, (one is the web page the other is the FaceBook page) I am sure you can meet the rest of the team, Paul Steve, Debbie and the rest, as well as hundreds of other photos of the guests enjoying what you and I could do, at anytime if we wanted!  Fabulous photos.

Warrior Danny

Caris and the gang


Junior

Me and Kirsty

I took this because it just
looked amazing!

Ravi, Jan and Nick

Ravi

Some of the St Christopher's crew

Watching Toots

Watching toots!

Oh and this is my geeky stats for the Saturday run!






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