As part of my Marketing role at ProspectSoft, I get to organise charity events for the company to take part in to ensure we are doing our part in helping our community and making the world a better place. The most recent event I planned was for us to take part in the infamous Cancer Research Muddy Run! 

This involved running a 5k around Willen Lake in Milton Keynes through a variety of muddy obstacles. Although, before we actually went running, there was a lot of preparation, including fundraising, that had to be done. We had a target of £500 initially, so we made sure to get the word out to our families, friends and fellow employees. Next was the training. None of us had ever done a 5k run before, so we made sure to do some extra cardio in the gym and attended spin classes to get our cardiovascular endurance up before the race.

Prior to the race, we also went charity shopping as the theme of the race is pink! So, we each bought a pink top – ensuring we all looked the part on the big day!

On the morning of the run, we all had a big breakfast for fuel and made our way to Milton Keynes. On our arrival we discovered a fun and supportive atmosphere with stalls and music, being enjoyed by participants and onlookers alike, warming up and dancing. 

As the countdown finished, a cheer of encouragement roared from the sidelines and we began our run. Beautiful scenery surrounded us –  Willen Lake on our left and the rolling hills of countryside on our right –  it was definitely a lovely place for the race to take place. The weather was coincidentally one of the hottest days it had been since the start of summer, so it was tough to keep up the pace. This made sliding into the cold and muddy obstacles even better! Volunteers would even sometimes be either side throwing buckets of mud at the runners, covering them head to toe! After the first obstacle we were all drenched with mud – we had to crawl under a net with swampy mud under our hands and feet! 

Around the course of the run there were signs with facts about cancer and how much each lifesaving piece of equipment would cost. This really made it feel like we were running for a purpose. 

The obstacles broke the 5k run up nicely, and we had many chances to take a breather while waiting in line for the next muddy course. There were frames we had to climb over, slides to race down and nets to crawl under, all covered with mud! Towards the end of the run, we finally caught sight of the last muddy slide where the finish line was, so we picked up the pace and slid down to get our medals and much needed water! In total, it took us around an hour to complete as there was such a large crowd running the course so queue times could sometimes be up to five minutes.

It was an extremely gratifying thing to do, and I would completely recommend it to anyone who wanted to do something for charity that was also really fun! Not only did we make an amazing memory, but we also exceeded our target of £500 and raised nearly £800! 

Of course, we had to take a before and after picture to compare how muddy we got too!

If you want to learn more about Cancer Research or how you could take part in something similar, here is a link that can help!

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