On the Road Again!

Who would have thought it? Five years ago we set up the Jammys with the sole purpose of raising awareness and much needed funds for the Simpson Special Care Babies (SSCB) charity. Each year we take on the JogScotland 5K challenges the length and breadth of Scotland and this week we set-off on our sixth tour. The Jammys have always believed in their motto – Joy, Laughter and Fun – it’s a great philosophy to take into these events. The Jammys have grown in number over the years and instead of getting all Jammys to commit to the whole tour we now try and get as many Jammys as possible to each event.

JogScotland are a tremendous organisation who aim to get people active and we remain committed to this aim with our workplace JogScotland group. Throughout the month of June JogScotland put together a series of challenges for their members to aspire to and for many it is the focus of their efforts to get fit.  Over the last few months we have been organising our tour – booking the minibus for Aberdeen and Inverness and sourcing and printing the T-shirts for the new Jammys joining us for this year’s tour.

So the main focus of the last seven days has been The Jammys tour. On the eve of the tour we were dealt a blow with JammyJules, one of the new Jammys, having to pull out of the first couple of challenges as a result of injury. So on Wednesday we headed up north with only eight Jammys for the first challenge, however, this did not dampen spirits as it was just great to be on the road again. The first two challenges are nearly always Aberdeen and Inverness and these challenges have a special atmosphere with the group travelling together in a minibus – a really good bonding session. Over the years there are a lot of traditions that have been implemented. Maynards directly benefit from one of these traditions – the consumption of copious amounts of wine gums – mostly it has to be said by JammyBilly.

It was a miserable drive up to Aberdeen, wet and misty. We arrived in good time, so much so that we were charged by JogScotland to recall the course from our previous visit a couple of years ago. Nobody else seemed to remember the course, so we ran what we thought was the course and amazingly enough our route came in at 5K – total recall or what? The challenge got underway and the heavens opened, definitely the wettest challenge we have been involved in. The Jammys all made it home safely, the bonus being that everyone was pleased with their times. You can donate on our fundraising page.

The weekend was taken up with the Grand Harburn Festival, it was our first festival so it was an all new experience for us. We decided as the festival essentially takes place at three sites we would take our bikes. It has to be said that not much cycling took place, Moira was located at the village hall selling burgers and John was at the Sawmill looking after some of the games. Thankfully the rain stayed away.

It wouldn’t be Saturday without some connection with parkrun and so on Saturday night it was off to Bellshill to celebrate Ally’s 27^th birthday for the 24^th time. It was great to see so many of our parkrun friends dressed up in something other than running gear! I’d like to say they all behaved themselves but that would be somewhat glossing over the truth.