Club Run - Welcomes Returnees!

Hello blog lovers.

What a beautiful evening for club night!  It was still light out when we arrived at the rec.  It will soon be time to run through the woods!  I can't wait to take them through there!

But for now, we were going to continue to pound the pavements.  We had a couple of new people to group 1, runners who have been before but have lapsed!  They are now ready to step it up and get back to it!  Eight of us were standing behind the group 1 post.  Well, actually there were seven of us that left the rec and by the time we got to the end of Crossways we saw someone running fast towards us!  I am not sure if she was going to go with group 2 and then changed her mind, I kind of missed what she said!  So in the end there were 8 of us.

As in all our running we had hills, whether they come in the beginning, middle or end, the hills are always there.  As a leader of group 1 I do try to chose a nice easier route than maybe group 4 or 5 upwards.  But no matter what, if we run along Crossways, in either direction when we come out of the rec, and then turn left or right on any of the roads, then we happen upon a hill!  Today the hill was Petts Wood Road,.........and then the undulations of Crescent Drive............and then maybe just a few more along Woodland way, Great Thrift etc!  But apart from that it's virtually flat!

Running up that first hill I just at the back and let everyone go at their own speed, just to see how fast they could potentially go.  Can you believe that, even with me behind them we were doing 11 minute mileing!  A tad fast for group 1, but it's good to know that the front runners were happily chatting away while they were running UP HILL too!  So I should think just a few weeks in group 1 and then they will be itching for a 'Move Up' week to go and join group 2, if they don't do it before hand!

We ran all the way Crescent Drive and then along side the triangle to cross the road.  Of course we take walking breaks, I am not hard task master in group 1.  We ran along Crestview and then walked through the car park.  I wanted to introduce the new comers to the 'silent running over the bridge!'  It's good practise, nice and light on your feet, and you can really concentrate on it when you run over this bridge!  No making the trip trap, trip trap noises over the bridge!!  Do you know what? It was as silent as the most silent place on planet silence!  As silent as a fluffy cloud floating by!  Brilliant running!

From here, being a good leader, I gave two options, the quicker route, or the longer route but with at least three possible shortcuts!  It nearly made my heart burst with pride when the unanimous decision was to take the longer route, with the option of calling out to run along any of the other roads!  We passed the first roads, well, I guess Towncourt came up to quickly so wasn't really an option anyway.  But then Silverdale,  I didn't hear anyone call out to run down there!  But when we ran passed it, one of the other ladies said "Oh ok, straight up then"  I think she did call out to run down there, but decided that she could carry on running along.

We ran all along here, and when we got to Little Thrift I said, "Left turn!"  we all turned to run along there.  "You don't have to run along here, you can wait at the end" I said "Oh now you say that" came the answer back.  It's only a short road, but some stop just as we ran in, another just in front of them and I stopped just a little further on.  Trish, Nicola and Rachel ran all the way round the cul-de-sac.  "It's their fault we are running along here " I said jokingly "These three are all chatting away, and are in front of us" I said.  They were really running very well indeed!

With just a little further to go to get back to Cross ways we all ran along together.  Getting on to the block that the park is on I told them they could go as fast or as slow as they like all the way to the rec.  Some of them ran off a bit faster, some just kept the same pace, and then some chose to just slow the pace as they made their way to the rec.  Me, I decided to sprint along Crossways!

A fabulous run today, I feel sure that all the ladies enjoyed the run today, and just look at those stats, 3.6 miles! Average moving pace of 12:22 almost perfect pacing!  I do surprise my self!