The Great Big Cookie Run held on Oct 29th by Run Ottawa has raised money for local Girl Guide units for over 20 years. This year the event raised $3100 and was a blast to participate in. I’m writing this a few days after the Great Big Cookie Run and this race marked one year of running for me. When I ran the race last year, it was to complete my goal of running a 5k race. This year my goal was to achieve a 10k and I will happily report I did that a couple of weeks ago.
This year's race was again held at Landsdowne Park and followed a route that led towards the Dows Lake Pavilion along the Rideau Canal. A 1K kids race took place before the start of the 5k and at these races, the course had us run half the distance and then turn around and run back. At the turnaround point, they offered you either a mint or a classic Girl Guide Cookie to snack on.
This year the race was sponsored by Desjardins and that allowed the event to have these really beautiful race medals to be provided. They look just like a mint girl guide cookie! The design includes a bite being taken off the top and you can see the white filling in the middle of the cookie poking through. They matched the colour of the cookie really well and had that side detail around the edges. The race shirts also had the same design but the medals were a highlight of the event for me and mine is currently sitting in my Girl Guide case with the rest of my collection.
This year I wore my GGC uniform over my cold running gear along with a GGC hat. It was a pretty cool moment to cross the finish line in them. I even flashed the three-finger Girl Guide salute and it ended up with a race photo that I love. One of the selling points of the Cookie Run is when you cross the finish line you are given a cookie by a GGC member and it was super cool that I knew the Guiders handing out the cookies. I love this race and it's been a really cool event to take part in over the last few years.
Thanks for Reading! - Em