What a wonderful day for our Crisis DIY Race  to End Homelessness: lovely sun, a gentle breeze, a green fair on Castlegate, Sheffield Waterfront Festival in the Canal Basin. The route, as we said before, is beautiful and running round Blackburn Meadows Nature Reserve at the far end was wonderful. Not only that - look at our time:

Sheffield Running        21.09 km        1:59:59        5:41 min/km

The Waterfront festival did restrict the brands of alcohol-free beer available at the Dorothy Pax but what we got - a pilsner and a tripe - were lovely. The queues for food were also a bit longer than we'd anticipated but we eventually got our chips to go with the beers (lemonade for Eli) as we sat on top of the arches of the old railway line. A friendly customer took our photo for us too (that's the original 2006 running vest that Tony's wearing) - see above.

On top of all that our supporters have already donated £514 including Giftaid which made everything worth while.

Anna and Tony, along with her friend Beth, ran the 2006 Great North Run for Crisis with Polly providing logistic support and encouraging texts every mile or so. Anna and Beth were working for Crisis at the time (as was Dave) and were involved in setting up the Newcastle Skylight project. We have continued to support Crisis from then on and decided to take part in their Race to End Homelessness this year. Anna and Tony had been going to run the Sheffield Half Marathon for Crisis last year (it would have been a milestone for both: Anna would have been 40 and Tony 70) but it was postponed and they're a little uneasy about the starting arrangements for the rescheduled event on 26/9 so they'll run with Dave, and Eli and Polly will cycle, 21.1 Km from the Sheffield Canal Basin to Rotherham and back along the Five Weirs Walk on Saturday, 18/9.

We did this earlier in the year for small park Big Run, an event raising funds for Palestinian charities, and it's a fantastic route so we'll run and cycle for the sheer love of it but if you would like to add to our enjoyment by making a donation to Crisis then we'd be very pleased.

Thank you, Anna, Dave & Eli, Polly &Tony

Crisis wrote: Right now, across Britain hundreds of thousands of people are still experiencing the worst forms of homelessness, either sleeping on our streets, sofa-surfing far away from their family and friends or spending months or even years stuck in unsuitable accommodation like B&Bs. Coming out of the pandemic we have an opportunity to build back better for people facing homelessness.Thats why Ive chosen to race to end homelessness and fundraise to help make sure everyone has somewhere safe and secure to call home.