Run for the Kids Nike Training Runs

Early days by the Yarra when the sun still shone

One of the great runs on the Victorian calendar is the Run for the Kids, a fifth year event to raise funds for our Royal Children's Hospital. This year, for the first time, I decided to take part in their organised training runs, sponsored by Nike. I've certainly found that committing to these organised sessions is a good way to make sure I don't pike out if the weather looks iffy or I feel tired!

The venue for the runs was Federation Square and they went for 8 weeks from 23 February. The top photo shows the first day, bathed in beautiful sunshine at the tail end of summer. (Seems so long ago now.) On that day I did a hard and fast 4k before graduating in subsequent weeks to the steady paced longer runs of around 10-12k.

I cannot speak more highly of the organisation for these runs. They have people looking after your bags, pace team leaders (for 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6, 6.5 min/km groups) and drinks/lollies before and after. And it doesn't cost a cent! Thank goodness for sponsors!

The pace team leaders were wonderful too - full of encouragement and good cheer whilst keeping the pace even (if sometimes a little faster than advertised!) I had the pleasure of running with Elly, Jeremy, Rupert, Jose and Emma over the weeks I ran and they were all ace. (Emma - you ran the legs off me during that last session around the Tan. How humbling to be totally out of breath whilst you skipped around chatting away!)

So, eight weeks and many k's later it is done and we all await the race on Sunday. Should be a lot of fun. The weather forecast is great, the pace leaders will be out and I'll be there with my camera to have some fun whilst I run the 14.4k.

Ready to head off from Federation Square