Spartan race success for Royston pair

A WOMAN enjoyed an unusual birthday celebration when she took part in a Spartan Race to raise cash for charity.

Royston resident Laura Nottingham celebrated her 29th birthday on Friday, and two days later was tackling the 5km obstacle course at Carver Barracks near Saffron Walden with her sister, Alison Hammond.

She said: “It was certainly an interesting and challenging way to mark my birthday. We did a little bit of training beforehand and both consider ourselves quite fit, running around after our young children all the time anyway, but nothing could prepare us for how gruelling the race was.

“It was such hard work and so physically demanding and exhausting, climbing over cargo nets, scrambling under barbed wire into waist deep muddy water throwing spears and carrying sandbags up gravel mountains, not to mention the 5km distance we ran.”

Mrs Nottingham was raising cash for the British Heart Foundation, and so far she and her sister have collected about £500.

She said: “I decided that I wanted to challenge myself and do something unlike a Fun run or night hike, and so decided that the Spartan race was the perfect event with lots of mud and obstacles.

“I was prepared to do it on my own, but Alison then said she would like to do it with me. We chose the British heart foundation because a lot of our friends and family have been touched with the effects of heart disease.”

To sponsor the pair visit www.justgiving.com/lauraspartan.