Olympic Challenge: The Liverpool Santa Dash

The Santa Dash in Liverpool is the World's largest Santa run. Last year Liverpool faced up to the challenge from Las Vegas to gain the coveted title and Liverpool won. Hurrah.

So this year the Santas were out in force again and I believe there were over 10,000 of us taking part today. I like to think that after today the city has retained it's crown as the greatest Santa fun run on Earth. I heard a rumour during the race that the city is potentially not gong to do the race next year but I hope this turns out not to be true. I will be devastated if it doesn't go ahead in 2015.

So the format today was the same as last year whereby you could choose to run in either a red or blue Santa suit dependent on whether you are a Liverpool or Everton supporter. I ran with various members of my family with all of us adopting a red suit except for my sister who was in blue. We also had my little niece (just short of her second birthday) to take along the 5km route in her running buggy. She was also very festive and dressed in red.

As a family team we were also carrying the following handicaps:

1 of us had a chest infection and tonsillitis

1 of us had a swollen and painful knee from a fall earlier in the week

1 had a hangover

I was up drinking with the aforementioned person until 3am. (i.e. 6.5 hours prior to the race.)

A healthy bunch if ever there was one eh?

The atmosphere at the start line was excellent. Despite it being a little breezy down at the docks the mighty setting of the Liver Building and thousands of Santas was enough to get the adrenaline going and stay warm. My trousers were way too big and fell down twice. Dirty old Santa = me. Fortunately we had safety pins to salvage the situation. We started near the back of the crowd since I had the buggy and soon we passed the start line to the sound of Christmas tunes and we were on our way. Marvellous.

I love Christmas and the build up to it so today was a perfect way to get further into the Christmas spirit (if the prosecco and mince pies the night before weren't enough.) I have to say though at the start I felt a little upset as my Mum and Dad would have loved to have been part of this event and what has now become a newly made family tradition. Don't get me wrong; they may not necessarily have been running with us but most certainly would have been watching from the sidelines at the very least. It just made me a little sad that they are not here to share in it.

But on with the show we went. After all; I had a buggy (not an empty one) to push for the next 5km.

The route went through town and being at the back of the pack meant we had excellent views of the thousands of red (and occasional blue) people ahead of us. It was awesome. The weather was pretty kind to us and my niece didn't moan once during the course. She's a star.

Despite our ailments we crossed the finish line together under snowfall that the city had kindly arranged for us. It was a shame we had to break it to my cousin that it was indeed fake snow and not real as she first had thought. Still a magical moment though.

Post run sausages and bacon butties were the order of the day followed by watching Home Alone by the open fire.

It has been the most simple race to sum up in three words.

A wonderful day.

Number, beard and hat at the ready