Moving On Up!

Hello blog readers.

This is us, Group 1!

Just before I get chatting about my club run, just a quick gloss over my parkrun on Saturday!  I know, I forgot to blog it!  I had a bit of a head on! Me and the Old Boy went out for a couple of sherberts the night before!  Still, I managed to get up a do a parkrun, I didn't beat my time for this year, but I have a plan now.  When I want to chase a PB then I have a alcohol free Friday!  It's only right!  So geeky stats for my park run.......oh yes, it's on strava,  I also forgot to put my Garmin on, so it was 3.1 mi, pace 11:59 mi, time 38.03 mins.

And now it's club time.  I was leading, and it's also move up week and I am sure you all know what that means? It means that I kind of push my regulars in Group 1, just once a month, to go just a little bit harder on one of our easy routes!   Only a little be bit hard, lets see if we can't beat our own record for this particular route!  I am sure if we try we can!

Tracy and Ade made their own way there and me and Naggy made our way to the rec.  We entered the rec with all the rest of our brilliant members.  My goodness there are just so many of us now!  We are growing and growing each week, I am sure of it!  DiscoRich was the announcer this evening and introduced the leaders, and today, all the leaders seemed to be lined up ready to be introduced!  It made for a much smoother transition from group leader to group leader.  We all gave our routes out and pace and then gathered our members together!

We were last out of the rec, and for the first part of our run I kept it nice and slow, as we warmed up.  It's not good pushing hard with cold muscles, just as we left the rec we took on another runner.  She was just a tad late and she decided that she would run with us, Clare is her name, her usual group is group 7!  I hope we can help her to have a good run this evening! We took it nice and easy up Kingsway, sending the faster runners back down to the back of the pack to keep warm while we waited for the catchup.

To be fair, I thought I was not going to be 'feeling it' tonight, it was just so cold!  I hate being cold!  I was also being rather vain too.  I had my hair done yesterday and I didn't want to scrape my hair up and shove it in a smelly old cap, so I was out running with my hair flowing in the wind and not hat!  I was going to be feeling something, and that was blimmin cold! Still, we are going to be working a little bit harder this evening, in honour of Move Up Week.

As soon as the sweepers had got to us then we started off again.  As I said, we are going to be working hard! We ran to the walking bridge and ran as quiet as mice over it.   I must say, they were all very good with the quiet running!  We continued our run, trying to keep them all together as I encouraged them all to just push that little bit harder, getting the sweepers to push a little bit harder!  We got a pb to get!

By the time we got around Crestview Drive I was really enjoying this run.  The group of ladies were all enjoying it, chatting, walking if the felt the need, and doing loop backs if they had the energy.  I was nicely warmed up, not warm enough to take off a layer, but just happily warm.  I was thinking again what a brilliant club I run with that they could make me a leader!  Because I know, if I didn't have this club then I wouldn't be out here running in the cold.  It's discipline.  I was reminded at my church about what discipline is.  It comes from the word discipleship, meaning learning.  So when we got out and do something, disciplining ourselves, we are actually learning.  Learning what we can do, how much we can actually push ourselves.  Learning that we need to keep on trying, keep on seeing what we can do! Well, that's what I was telling myself as I ran along today.  I need to be more disciplined on my parkruns!  And other things as well!  It's weird what you think about on a run, isn't it.

Anyway, we carried on our run, all the way along Crescent Drive and down and up Shepperton Avenue.  Stopping for catch up's at each crossing of roads.  We ran to the Off license and crossed over, just as another group got there too.  "Why don't Clare run with this group, they could be faster than us" someone said, and then I said "They could also be Orpington Road Runners" because they also run on a Tuesday night!  As it happened they were Orpies, so just as well she didn't join them!

With just the last couple of roads left to do, everyone was running brilliantly.  I felt as if we really did have our own 'move up' week as it felt as if we had run harder than we normally do.  It was a good run, I am sure everyone enjoyed it!  Back to normal pace next week, and maybe even some of the others feel they will be able to move up to group 2!

Here's our geeky stats.