Club Run - Me leading!

Hello readers.

It's my post holiday run!  I thought I would be some much worse than I was today, but actually if felt good.I know I ate loads on holiday, especially the breakfast.  I mean, really, who eats like they are on DownTown Abby every day!  Usually I eat a bit of fruit and muesli with some yogurt, of course on holiday, especially when it's bed and breakfast, you just eat it because it's there!  But then, I didn't eat lunch really, and didn't even have that many snacks.  But I still felt bloated!  Of course no running at all over the weekend!

So my first run back since Thursday, I was leading group 1.  It is also move-up week, which means as it's my lead I like to try and push a little bit harder, so it feels like we have all moved up.  That means hills!  I was looking around my routes for some inspiration and the only one that came up with some hills is, of course, Tillingbourne Green!  I thought about it all the way in the car to the rec.  The other routes just don't seem to have that little bit of extra undulations! 

After all the leaders were introduced and given out their routes, we all gathered at our meeting spots, paddles held high and we gathered in all our runners.  In my group there were only four of us, I am not quite sure how fast we are all going to be.  It's going to be an interesting run.  It also means that I really am going to have to push myself, no sneaking to the back having a cheeky walking pace. 

We set off out the gate and turn left, run to the end and then turn right, our first hill already, Birchwood.  I am going to have to try and run up this with no cheeky stopping, especially if the three other ladies are next to me, it means they are keeping up with the average pace.  I kept an eye on the pace, my watch was showing that we were bang on target of our slowest pace of 13:30 minute miles, I was perfectly happy with that.  We had a bit of a breather at the top, then walked a bit, mainly because just under the trees it's quite dark, the roots have pushed up the tarmac too, so it's a bit of a trip hazard.  We saw another group running towards us, I 'high-fived' them as they ran past.  We ran a little further to the crossing and RefMichael's group was there, waiting to cross the road, it looks as they are going to run Tillingbourne too!  After we crossed over the road we followed them towards the green, a nice down hill section. We were not that far behind them, I expected to bump into them again when we got to the end of the road, but they had turned right to run up the hill to Petts Wood Road.  We, however went straight over and then around the green.  It's quite a cunning little hill, the road leads up to the college gates, it's just a short incline but on the other side of this is a longer down hill section as it goes around the green hugging the outer edges of the grassy area.  You just know that as you are running down the hill, enjoying the easy momentum, you start thinking that you got to go back up to where we had started from!

All three of the ladies did really well, I had a cheeky walk but I did finish the green with a run to the others.  We had one more hill to do and that was the one to get to Petts Wood Road.  We had a bit of a harder run to get to the top, just for training, just for fun, just because we can.  We have to feel like we have done ourselves some good with our running.  We were really doing very well with our time, I said to them that if they wanted to run along this road, down to Crossways, then wait until we all came together again.  We were doing really well on time, there was only one thing for it and that was to go up to the top, finish the road and then run down Kingsway and back to the rec that way! 

We ran for 3 miles, a pretty good pace for group 1 and some hills thrown in.  We all kept together as a tight group, the only one that suffered slight was me!  I had to walk up some of  Tillingbourne Green!

So our geeky stats for a group 1, move-up week, hilly one!