My first Christmas Cracker race, which is 10k up and down the beach at Weston-Super-Mare, finishing coming back inland through Uphill before ending at the pier. I participated this year dressed as a Xmas pudding as part of the Bristol & West fancy dress team (we got first prize).

The very high winds meant that I spent the first couple of km with my arms inside my costume, and we went off at a moderate pace. This gradually seemed to pick up somehow and by the time we turned inland at Uphill the carrot (Tracy), turkey (Rosey) and I took advantage of the lack of buffeting to press on. We managed to catch up another turkey, another pud, and Simon before we hit the beach again, ending up with an impressive negative split and finish times a tad faster than we were aiming for.

I ended up 357th out of 1,802 runners, 80th lady and 49th in my age category. Interestingly there were more female participants than male, with 1,061 ladies compared to 741 men.