Wellington Walk for Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
14 October 2009
Sunday 11th October - Greenwich Park - Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
Five continents, Over 334 cities worldwide, 1,109,500 walkers and £70 million raised. Every year JDRF supporters join together at sites all over the world to Walk to Cure Diabetes by raising money for type 1 diabetes research. This year the Wellington Hospital pledged their support. http://www.jdrf.org.uk/
Here's Our Story...
It all started at 8.15am on Sunday morning, waiting at a bus stop on a typical autumn morning, a little bit windy, a little bit wet, leaves scutterling along the road. We boarded the JDRF coach cold and a little sleepy, we arrived a bit warmer, well fed and raring to go.
With the sun breaking through the clouds we made our way into Greenwich Park towards the big crowd gathered around the bandstand to register our arrival. There were a few Wellington teams dotted around consisting of:
- The Executives
- Business Development
- Human Resources
- Theatres
- Housekeeping
- Estates
The queues were quick, the tea was flowing, dogs bounced along on their owners leads and the brave soles that were running attached their numbers and stepped forward to do their warm-up. They were off first.
A giant Pingu took to the stage, an announcer lead the way "Step to the left, Step to the right, Arms in Air!" 5 minutes later those crazy enthusiatic running fools were gone, the walkers waving them off, all excited about their imminent departure.
The walkers warm-up was next, more dancing (a little bit of singing) "Jump to the left, Jump to the Right, Arms in the Air" and we were off, adults, children, dogs, mums, dads, brothers, sisters... although i don't think the giant pingu quite made it!
An hour of so later we emerged through the beautiful sunshine, autumn leaves and blue & white t-shirts the multicoloured ballon banner finish line was in sight... we were spurred on by the smoke of the barbeques and queues of people lining up for some hotdogs and warm food.
We'd done it! We'd finished... we proudly stepped forward to collect our medals, queued up for some tasty grub then gently ambled back to the bus stop ready for a well deserved rest and a long soak in the tub.
