Week 2 has officially ended and we’re now at the start of week 3. But if, like me, you’ve missed some challenges along the way you can still do them and get some points. By the way, we’re loving all these photos and posts about your challenges! Keep them coming 🙂
Edit:The Rules Committee has decided that anyone can complete a challenge from a previous week at any time before the end of the four weeks of the Christmas Challenge, but they will score half points for the “late” challenge. This is to give anyone joining late a chance to make up some ground.
SO, WITH A DRUM ROLL AND COUNTDOWN, 3-2-1- 🎆🎇 HERE IS THE WEEK 3 CHALLENGE!!
WEEK 3: 18th-24th December
1. Run/walk your own “art”. Any Christmas themed shape, e.g. star, tree, mince pie, angel, Santa (if you’re ambitious!) or anything else you can think of (10 points)
2. 🎶Twelve Days of Christmas 🎶As part of your warmup do 12 star jumps. When you get home, do 12 snow angels. On the floor is fine unless you have snow in which case we want to see the photos please! (1 point for each star jump AND snow Angel upto a maximum of 12 points)
3. Push yourself a little and run/walk further/faster but then give yourself a reward when you get home. You choose. Mulled wine? Extra mince pie? Extra Quality Street? Bigger slice of Stilton? Tell us what you choose and take a photo. We like seeing photos of food around here 😋 (2 points)
I’m not sure I will manage the first one as I’ve never been able to do much in running art, but the fun will be in trying so I’ll give it a go 🤗 The second one should be ok and I’m already thinking of a suitable treat for no 3!
Well, That’s week 3 kicked off. Go yonder and have fun you festive runners and then come back here and tell/show us all about it 🤩🏃♂️🏃♀️🎄🎅🎁
From your little elf team linda9389 , Beachcomber66 and me xxx
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Irishprincess
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I might see if I can dig out my last Christmas art route ... a bit of recycling. I have a feeling it might have been a bit of a long one, but maybe I could incorporate a warm up and cool down walk!
However, in order to be totally fair for all participants, we can give you half points for this challenge as the date falls outside the week 3 window, or, alternatively, you can do one again within the dates and get full points. As you have been ploughing through these challenges I’m sure you will do this easily 🤗
I’m absolutely hopeless at making any shapes so I am really impressed!
Well done to everyone doing your Christmas Christmas Challenge Irishprincess , although I'm not officially doing the challenge I did run 10K on Monday and this morning ran my 190th (not) parkrun on my normal route.
Part of that route passes through a housing estate where there are many outside Christmas decorations, some were still lit when I ran past this morning.
Last Thursday I took a walk past those houses at 6pm when it was dark and what an amazing site, practically all the houses had Christmas lights on, lit Christmas trees on gardens, lights on the roofs, normal trees lit up , an amazing place for Christmas lights, however, this morning only a few lights were on, by the way my 5K time today was 33:16 which I am happy with
Sadly as I passed one of the houses there were two reindeer lying on their sides, during the night there were strong winds, the two reindeer were blown over
This is going to be a tricky set of challenges. The niggle around the inside of my right knee is still there, so I think that I will give the Star Jumps a miss! My physio would be less than sympathetic if I made things worse….and we don’t want an irritated physio with her thumbs in our knees do we ?😬. I think a slightly quicker run will be fine, and a good friend brought around some freshly made sausage rolls and homemade crushed malteser squares last night! They have been left out of our diet for the last year, so one of each will definitely be additional treats!! That leaves street art. Tricky…..we don’t have any parallel streets close to hand for legs, but I did get away with a somewhat rudimentary Loch Ness monster on one occasion….will have to ponder. Good luck everyone; just let go and enjoy. Porridge first though; bit of a late start this morning.🙄
You definitely don’t want to aggravate that knee BC. I was in two minds this morning doing that one too but luckily my knee was ok.
I’m already thinking what my treat is going to be, but I love the thought of your crushed Malteser squares 😋 After the Antrim HM I craved maltesers of all things which I’d never craved before! Weird.
I’m going to find the art thing tricky too as it’s hard to do that on country roads. I’ll have to head out to the arboretum for that one methinks.
Ok, managed a 4K run with 1k being a warm up and the last three were sub 60 seconds; a bit quicker than I have been moving lately. My post run treat was two homemade sausage rolls and a Malteser square.. definitely off piste given out pre diabetic/ diabetic diets. I will try to post a pic. First two attempts failed! 2 points??; Nope pic won’t load!!
this is a tough one IP, you really have us working hard. I didn’t fancy the track in the rain last night so went out this morning, it was chilly but the skies were blue. Mr Shakes was given the job of photographer to capture the 12 star jumps pre-run and the 12 snow angels post-run. Here are a selection ! You will see that I hate star jumps (ask anyone stood next to me at a race warm up) but all 12 were accomplished. We have no snow so a cream lounge carpet had to suffice for the angels.
The run was a bit horrid. It has been 19 days since I ran the HM yet my legs feel like it was yesterday, 4.5km seemed like a marathon. I’m still waiting for the benefits to kick in! But it was a pleasant route, I met a few runners coming the other way and got home before it rained.
I'm back! And it was flippin cold out there for the first 10 minutes!!!
My plan had a tempo run on it today. I don't like those, although Hal Higdon has a slightly different approach which was a bit more bearable. Anyway, suffice to say there was a degree of pushing myself to get up to 10k pace having landed at 5.30 this morning after a 12 and a half hour flight. My treat? A lovely shower and a really good brush of my teeth. Oh, and two points hopefully😍 No photos!!!!
What a trooper! Running after a long flight, such dedication. Think you deserve another treat, may be a Bailey’s coffee or nice hot chocolate, to help you sleep tonight and get over the jet lag.
Off to get my nails done now, that's nice treat ... but yes, a drink and an early night will be on the cards. We have a four hour time difference to absorb as well, so I think sleep will come easy.I felt so much better after the run though ... for a short while 🤣
Last week. I got wearing the Christmas Jumper and downloaded and ran to, Now that's what I call Christmas. Today...Christmas art..can you spot the bauble and thread...?
Plus. Favourite treat..smoked salmon, cream cheese and bagel.
..PS...Card run on the Close, this morning.. real feel -4...dark ...very cold, and very short run...and...it snowed on me...I got snow...maybe worth a bonus point???🤣 x
Well, I did the 12 star jumps and 12 snow angels (on the carpet sadly) on Thursday. Sorry, there was no one around ☹️ to take a photo.
And today I pushed my pace for a whole 1K (haven't done that in a while) and got two new records. It’s not my fastest 1K ever but hey I’ll take it as I haven't done that pace for months. So, I rewarded myself with a Portuguese Custard tart that Mr IP had bought earlier, but I forgot to take the photo until I’d eaten it, so here are the crumbs 🤣
Beachcomber66 or linda9389 could you give me my points please? Many thanks.
Thanks Linda. I couldn’t get out to post my cards because of the storm and then the roads were flooded and then Mr IP picked them up from the table and posted them for me…🤣
my second claim on this weeks challenge. Here are the glasses of mulled wine that TailChaser and I promised ourselves at the end of parkrun today (we have been promising them for a few weeks but today was the day they were going to happen) and very welcome they were too.
Some may say that a 5k Parkrun was not much of a challenge, particularly as I was tailwalker. But I know that TC has had a very challenging week and every stride today was hard work. I also found my 5k a challenge and although I was walking my legs were tired at the end (doesn’t bode well for my 10k tomorrow 😢).
Went to parkrun in a reindeer outfit , battled against the wind but I didn’t run fast enough to catch the gingerbread man. So ended up in a cafe for cappuccino and breakfast and only managed to get a photo of UTS with his cappuccino but I hope that counts for 2 points.
That’s it for me folks - Christmas has to take over. Too much to sort, too little time.
3. Push yourself a little and run/walk further/faster but then give yourself a reward when you get home. You choose. Mulled wine? Extra mince pie? Extra Quality Street? Bigger slice of Stilton? Tell us what you choose and take a photo. We like seeing photos of food around here 😋 (2 points)
After an aborted bike ride (this was the push) and a frantic call for a car, a freezing parkrun junior volunteer needed hot chocolate and a mince pie after a few hours on Sunday. On a fast walk back to the station, I downed them to quickly for my own photo, but I think this should work...
2. 🎶Twelve Days of Christmas 🎶As part of your warmup do 12 star jumps. When you get home, do 12 snow angels. On the floor is fine unless you have snow in which case we want to see the photos please! (1 point for each star jump AND snow Angel upto a maximum of 12 points)
I was the warm-up leader for the junior parkrun at Pinner this weekend, so got my jumps in there and my snow angels on the kitchen floor...
1. Run/walk your own “art”. Any Christmas themed shape, e.g. star, tree, mince pie, angel, Santa (if you’re ambitious!) or anything else you can think of (10 points)
Well, I can't compete in this category. I've never attempted run/walk art before. So I looked through my most recent runs for something.
I came up with this: Santa's sack full of toys flung over his shoulder...
Merry Christmas everyone. 12 star jumps and snow angels completed, no snow so they were inside. I changed Fridays easy run to a speed run of 3 x 1:00 at mile pace, 3 x 2:00 at 5k pace, 2 x 1:00 mile pace. 2 x 2:00 at 5k pace. 1x 1:00 mile pace 1 x 2:00 starting at 5k and each 30 seconds getting faster. Treated myself at the end to 2 cinnamon biscuits.
I have tried alsorts of way's to run a christmas art route and the best I could come up with was a 10k santa hat, needs a little imagination but I never was any good at art 🤣
Haha! or HO!HO!HO! perhaps ... so today I did 12 star jumps before my run (actually, I got distracted and did 18), I donned my santa hat and my headphones, drove to my start point, and trotted out an 8k reindeer (attempt), before driving home and adding 12 (just 12) snow angels to my stretches. Not bad eh?
So I reckon I ticked off the festive art and the 12 star angels today, and belatedly ticked off the wearing Christmas attire. Feeling smug (if a little busy and stressed) 😍
The tricky bit was the head - that was through the woods on a muddy, tree root covered trail! Once out of there it was OK (thanks to Komoot and a course map onn my watch)
I didn’t think I would be able to meet this challenge as I have no idea how to do Strava Art but as luck would have it my running club organised a Strava art run this evening. They promised it would be a steady pace and no more than 5k so I signed up. It was great fun as 11 of us trotted around Bidford upon Avon in the dark, looking very strange as we kept turning around and heading back the way we came and ran round in circles giggling as we went. Thankfully our leader knew where we were going and all I had to do was follow. The result a great reindeer (even though he is upside down). Please can I claim my points?
It was all going so well and this week I think I've plummeted in the points. Christmas art!! I don't have convenient streets to plan a drawing around so I tried a freefoot drawing (a joke), so at a visit to a park my simple effort has been 'transformed' into a Christmas present. Well, with a bit of imagination it is and not good enough for the Big points, other than a token for effort. Then to food, well I came back from a run and got into cooking mode, so here's my mince parcels before they even got into the oven. And in all my efforts preparing for family descending I completely forgot the star jumps, no points there and I've run out of time. Unless I can sneak in some half points this week. Thanks to the admin team for all the festive fun and so that's it. Happy Christmas to all our VRBs and may it be a good one 🎅
I’ve been hopeless at this IP, I’m sorry. I’ve been doing things then not reporting things because I’ve been distracted by something else. I hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas and is looking forward to new year celebrations. Please accept my Christmas lights collage from my walk last week, I sang along to carols at our Fordy Runs Birmingham meet the week before and dressed as Mrs Santa at parkrun last week. Better late than never?
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The SPEED CHALLENGE is coming back 🤩 Starts next week, who's in???