Wow! What an incredible day we had at our very first Mental Elf fun run!

On Sunday 26th November we hosted our first Mental Elf 5k at Stadiwm CSM in Colwyn Bay. We were off to an amazing start a few days before the event when we sold out of tickets! All 200 places for Mental Elf had been snapped up!

On the day, we thankfully woke up to no rain – a real Christmas miracle! From 10:30am the Elves started arriving, we welcomed lots of runners and walkers all dressed in their favourite festive attire! There was such a buzz in the registration tent as the North Wales Rock Choir treated us to some Christmas classics for us to all sing along to!

Soon after 11:30am our participants headed down to the track to take some ‘Elfies’ and get ready to warm up!

Our Get Active Connector Maria got all our Elves warmed up and ready and raring to go and after a 10 second countdown our 200 runners set off around the track to the sound of the incredible North Wales Rock Choir!

Once participants had completed two loops of the track they left Stadiwm CSM to head down onto the Promenade. Along the route our fantastic volunteer stewards cheered and encouraged all our participants, which was definitely needed once they approached that steep hill back up to Eirias!

The Conwy Mind team couldn’t quite believe it when they heard on the radio’s after 20 minutes that the first runner was approaching the stadium! Jonah Armstrong crossed the finish line first and was handed his medal and goody bag by Father Christmas himself! It wasn’t long before more runners were entering the stadium to the sound of Christmas songs and supporters whooping and cheering at the finish line.

From start to finish it felt like there was such a buzz throughout the event and a real sense of community spirit. Everyone was having fun, feeling festive but all wanted to fight for better mental health and make a difference in their community.

Every single person who ran or walked Mental Elf should be so proud as we raised an incredible £6,200! We want to thank everyone that entered the race, fundraised, bought of raffle ticket or donated to our campaign. We’re blown away with the amount raised!

We’d like to thank The North Wales Rock Choir and of course Father Christmas for all bringing some festive cheer to our day, you bought smiles to lots of peoples faces!

Then of course a huge thank you to all our volunteers that helped make the event a huge success, we couldn’t have done it without you all! From feedback we’ve had from runners so many commented on the encouraging and friendly stewards along the route.

Last but definitely not least we’d like to say a massive thank you to Jennings who sponsored the event and enabled us to make it happen! Thanks to them 100% of all the money raised goes to helping people struggling in Conwy County. Jennings have been amazing to partner with as they share our values and are really keen to raise awareness of how important it is to talk and break down the stigma that is still sadly attached with mental health.

We also want to say a big thank you to Lancashire Mind who created the original concept of Mental Elf. We are so excited to make this an annual event that we can grow, bring on Mental Elf 20234!