First Inflatable5K Experience...

Hi. I hope you are well and having a good day.

Today I wanted to make a mini post about completing our first ever Inflatable 5K with UK Running Events on Saturday 7th May. This was something Jordan and I really wanted to take part in one year, and this was the year we decided to just go for it! 

Basically this was a running route with massive inflatables to climb on along the way.. Essentially a bit of a fun run! We wouldn't have really been interested in taking part if it weren't for the inflatable aspect! As you can see from the guide, there were a variety of inflatables advertised, distances were split between 2k, 5k, 10k and 15k (the further you go, the more times you get to go on the inflatables!) and we thought it looked like a fun and exciting challenge!

We spontanously signed up for the challenge on 19th April, and we decided to take on the most popular 5 kilometres, which works out to just over 3 miles... An achievable distance for us both to do in one journey! This also meant we were able to go on each inflatable twice. Overall the cost worked out to be £40 each person, which I thought was a lot... but it was something we both wanted to do, therefore we were prepared to pay the cost for the experience!

From signing up, it recommended for us to download a free app associated with the event, containing the event details, photos and race results. We made our team on the event and see other events around the country (and other countries) on the app. We also got sent a preparation pack in the post for the event which was shipped out immediately and contained information about the event and our race numbers.

For the day, I decided to wear gym leggings and sports vest (both which I got from Primark a couple years back) and my Nike trainers, which I got from the Nike outlet in Northern Ireland. Jordan wore a pair of black shorts and a Spyro themed T shirt. Had to be dressed for the occasion naturally, Jordan didn't have any gymwear and I have only used my gymwear a couple of times since so it was great to get the cobwebs blown off! The weather was not looking the best, it was raining for a good part of the morning so we did take rain macs as well!

I was also slightly nervous as although I have done two fitness oriented posts within a couple of months, there is no way I am the fittest or most active person out there! This was also my first ever fitness challenge with other people. I feel like with fitness and exercise, there is an association with competitiveness and you compete to be the best, the quickest, the strongest which some people thrive off. That is not me or why I exercise... It is definitely more about just having fun with the exercise I do and the challenges I take part in... As the age old saying goes, it is the taking part that counts! Plus if we did the challenge in a shorter timeframe, its more time on the inflatables... and who wouldn't want that?! I also didn't do any training in the run up to this challenge which wasn't the best idea however I can comfortably walk 5km so I decided if worst comes to worst, I could just walk the distance instead of run!

On Saturday 7th May, we made our way to the location of the inflatable 5k and got there slightly earlier than 10:30am which was our start time. The weather wasn't great... before we arrived, it had rained for at least a couple of hours but luckily it held off the whole time whilst we completed the run. It was decent weather to complete the run, it wasn't too warm and stayed dry! One thing I will say was that the whole experience was very organised, there were hundreds of people there but it was organised so well. We parked up, dropped our bags off and made our way over to the start where there was a bit of a queue but we all started at staggered times which was great as we weren't going all at one time and getting in each others way! We started out on this massive inflatable slide which was the perfect way to start the challenge, and continued from there. The inflatables were spaced out and we had to travel some distance in order to get to each inflatable which I thought was great... There was the motivation to always aim to get to the next inflatable, which I think was the reason why we ended up breezing through the 5K!

I don't actually have any photos from the course as I didn't want to take my phone around with me, I wanted to concentrate on enjoying the run and the experience itself. There were photographers there and have included one of the two very similar photos of us both on The Web. The experience itself was absolutely amazing, we didn't do any training beforehand but we completed the 5K in around 35 minutes, which I thought was decent considering we didn't have any training beforehand and we did spend a bit of time waiting to get on some inflatables. Funnily enough, I found the second lap much easier than the first! For the 5k, you get to go on the inflatables twice hence why we did two laps, and between each lap there is a drink station with a marshal handing out free mini bottles of water, which I thought was great... saves you having to carry around a drink with you! The inflatables were absolutely incredible. I think my favourite had to be the Temple Of Doom where I literally flew down these inflatable steps, and The Boss which was the biggest right at the end. I also enjoyed the crawling ones, Mind you, I really did enjoy them all! Jordan absolutely loved being a ninja on these inflatables and was rolling around all over the place, performing trick moves when he could!

There wasn't much that could be improved but I will say that each inflatable had a marshal occupying the traffic of people on each inflatable. Especially on Temple Of Doom on the first lap, I was reluctant to go on it as there must have been at least 20 other people in front climbing the inflatable steps to get up, and next to the inflatable, someone had just been taken off with a broken ankle. On our second lap, they had started to control people traffic which was good but I think that should have been in place earlier considering that injury could have been avoided. The only other thing I would say that could be improved was the junction near the end, where you could go one way to get to The Boss and finish, or you could go the other way and complete another lap. There wasn't anyone there to monitor that, so we could have probably squeezed in another lap, or alternatively we could have signed up for a 15K and claimed we had done it after one lap!

After completing The Boss, where we flew down another inflatable slide, we had completed our 5K! We collected our prizes which included an Inflatable5K medal, pair of socks, a multifunctional headwear and a bottle of apple juice. Again, very well organised. For an event with hundreds of people I can not fault the organisation of getting everyone parked, the queueing, and the prize giving station. Once we had finished, we collected our bags, got a photo in front of the Inflatable5K screen and decided to treat ourselves to lovely homemade sausage rolls and sprinkle cakes for lunch!

Would we do it again? Most definitely yes! It was such a fun running experience and we both commented that we would love to train a bit to prepare ourselves for the 10K race next year!

So yeah, it's all good...

Amy