Success and sore feet for runners

Recent shoppers in Cardiff’s Queens Arcade will have noticed that some of the staff at their favourite stores have been going about their work a little gingerly following the annual Kidney Wales 10K run.

Animal’s Manager, Simon Adams was one of the Centre’s successful runners and was a keen and competitive surfer and athlete even before he decided to join the Queens Arcade team in the recent event.

Simon, who is 23 has always enjoyed any sort of sport and competition was delighted to be asked to participate, “I am very competitive and always have been with my sports and I really wanted to beat my colleague Dave who works at Tony Pryce Sports here in the Centre!

Simon goes to the gym at least once a week and prior to this event had never run further than two miles at a time, so this was a step up in his regime, “I do lots of other activities to keep myself fit, so I think I went in with a good level of general fitness which helped.

“I was so glad that I had completed the race and didn’t stop running throughout.  I had legs like jelly when I stopped but once I had stretched out I was OK, it was the next day that my legs ached! So I was back running on the Tuesday just to loosen up!”

Simon finished a very creditable 416^th out of over 2000 runners in 47 minutes and 32 seconds but aims to do better next year; and still beat Dave!

Centre Manager, Nick Beckett is proud of the results achieved by the teams representing Queens Arcade, “We were delighted that the runners in our two teams were able to complete the course and that the public supported them right the way round.  I have no doubt that our former-Olympian security guard Matti Mafi’s words of wisdom during training and recovery were well heeded and I look forward to fielding a bigger and better team next year, if I can find my shoes!