Club Run - Rain and Sleet!

Hello blog readers.

What can I say about this evening?  GET IN THERE YOU RUNNERS!  That's what I can say about this evenings run!  I can't believe the amount of group 1 runners that turned out for their weekly club run!  If I wasn't leading then I would deffo have stayed in the nice and warm!  I had been watching the weather news all day, yellow warnings, snow by 8 pm, freezing wet rain and sleet!  It was not the stuff that would make you say "Oh wow, I could just do with a nice bracing run with my buddies"  Seriously, it was not very welcoming at all.  If I hadn't been leader this evening then I wouldn't be writing this, that's for sure.

But leading I was, and of course I nagged SnappyH to come as well.  She lives quite a walk away from the club meet up point, she usually gets a bus up.  But this weather was making her think that the best option was to stay put!  Until I offered to come and get her!  GetYourLegsUpTracy already had asked me to pick her, no persuading there, Naggy was off somewhere eating stuff, but deffo in some lovely warm place.  Auriol said she was turning up, but most of the others just couldn't face the cold wet sleety stuff.  I can't blame them!

I decided to do the Woo Woo route, minus the Woo's of course, and deffo no hip flasks of warming medicinal alcohol!  If any day was needed a nice warm tot of something it would be today!   So there we were, 12 leaders lined up, looking out at a soggy looking bunch of club runners!  We all quickly gave out our routes and pace and then went to our gathering spots to have a count up of people in our groups.  There were 11 of us in group 1, I was totally amazed.  I really didn't think I would get anyone out on a night like this, but there there all were, Auriol and GetYourLegsUpTracy were coming with me in group 1 too, especially as I said there is a chance of a short circuit if it becomes too wet and too miserable out there. Also KneesManChris was there too, with his knees out again!

Now the things is, It's been a while since the woo woo run, and I hadn't really looked at the route to check that I had it right in my mind.  I just presumed I would remember it as we ran along!  As soon as the last group started to move out of the rec then we followed on their heels, we didn't need to be hanging around getting colder!  I ran out of the rec and down to Petts Wood Road, we crossed over and then ran up towards the round about, well, there has to be a hill involved!

I think right there is where I went wrong!  I think I should have ran up Willet Way! But there you go, so now this was going to be a nice mystery tour, with hopefully that short circuit that I spoke of!  Every one was keeping up, considering it was really chilly, I didn't want to do too many stops but I also didn't want to put any pressure on the back runners!  Oh this blimmin weather!  It makes it so hard to try and pitch it right!  I know as I was walking to the rec with SnappyH and GetYourLegsUpTracy I was muttering how utterly stupid it was to be running out in this horrid, horrid weather!  It's supposed to be fun!

Anyway, there I was, top of the road, turning down Ladywell and suddenly thinking "Oops, I am not where I thought I should be"  But I kind of didn't say anything just then, I thought I would wing it as much as a could until I needed to stop and take stock of where I needed to be!  It was when we were at  approaching Cardiac Hill that I was looking a bit lost, Auriol then realised that I had gone wrong too!  Oh well, at least now there is two pair of eyes to look at which way that I needed to run!  When I realised where we, that's Cardiac Hill by the way, I knew just where we needed to run.  Of course it means running down Cardiac Hill, the best way to tackle this particular bit of our route this evening.  It takes us all the way to the OffLicense!  Yup, and that there is where we can chose to do the short circuit or the longer one, I was hoping my little detour would be enough to make the shorter route not too short, but still a satisfying run.   

When we got to the Off License I looked at my group 1 runners.  What a brave, hardcore set of runners they were!  I was thinking about how I wouldn't have come along today if I wasn't leading, yet here were these guys just wanting to run no matter what the weather!  Amazing PRWs.  I think they all proved something to themselves, they got out there and done it, but they were ready to go back to the rec to finish their run using the short route!  I was feeling proud of them, of all of us, really!  Ok, I still didn't want to be there getting wet and cold, but shit, we did it!

It was one more mile back to the rec, we ran for 2.72 miles.  Not bad, not bad for an evening likes this, yellow warnings from the met office, yet we still got out there and ran!  Well done group 1, well done all those in PWR who ran this evening!

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