I have just registered for a local funrun - the Tidworth 3k on the 1st November. And once more I will doing this in a silly costume! This will be an incentive to get my long-ago started but never completed badger costume made (If I fail in this endeavor I will run in the fox costume I did the Hearts First 5k in a few years back).

If you'd like to contribute to the very worthy charity - the Salisbury STARS appeal (a children's ward at the local hospital) the please visit my JustGiving page:

http://www.justgiving.com/laura-bean/

TIA! :D

Yesterday was the 5k Hearts First Jog round Westonbirt Arboretum in aid of the British Heart Foundation. Jam and I arrived insanely early, but I didn't know how busy it was going to be. Registration started at 9.30, the race at 11.00, but we were there at 9.00 and after handing in my registration card we had ages to kill, so we wandered round the grounds for a bit. Westonbirt is always lovely, but at the moment it's just starting to come out in Autumn colours - you can tell that in a month or so it's going to be glorious!

( cut for a rather long review of the race )

The race was absolutely amazing! It felt like such an achievement to have run as far as I did in such heat wearing as much as I was! I was on an absolute high for hours afterwards, until about 4.00pm when the tiredness suddenly hit. Today I'm less achey than I was expecting, which is a bonus.

I also had to face the rather mammoth task of washing my suit, which cannot be done in a washing machine as it would damage the fur. Instead the whole thing has to be placed in the bathtub in cold water with handwash, which results in a very heavy very wet piece of material! I had to tie a carrier bag over the tail to stop it getting wet, as the stuffing inside would have taken months to dry out fully. the whole thing was then rinsed to remove the soap suds, then hung over the clotheshorse in the bath to drip dry. It took me about 2 hours! I intend never to get that sweaty inside that suit again for a very long time!

Photos to follow soonish.

Off to Stroud tonight for a nice meal out in the Old Fleece in honor of jam_warrior's mum's birthday. Huzzah! I'm goingto try and drag Jam back to Bristol fairly early Saturday (or at least after lunch) so I can make use of spare time to do some costuming. I'm got the frame of a badger head that needs some more mesh and eventually some foam adding to it, then I need to think of making a body to go with. Fun run is a scarily short time away...

Speaking of which:

http://www.bhf.org.uk/sponsor/azuredragon