Week 2 Toopalarde On The Road Again

 Hello blog readers.

Club night again!  I'm lead Toopalarde!  There were 6 of us this evening, J.J. Snappy, Tracy, Wendimoo and Dee.  All of us have let lockdown boredom get the better of us, instead of us using it to get fitter!  I think it's because we all do like to 'flock together'.  We are no good on our own.  We try as hard as we could but without the support of our crew we just didn't do our running.....well not much of it anyway.

I am sticking to the same route, we are not ready for the woods yet,  we need to concentrate on our stamina first.  I am so looking forward to going through the woods but we need to be able to run for at least 15 minutes straight!  It's all hills and roots and branches in the woods, we can't look out for them while trying to remember how to breathe and run at the same time!

I have 'upped' our running to 2 minutes running and 4 minutes walking.  Yes, I kept to the 4 minutes of walking, next week that goes down!  We got this, we can do it!  It really is tough, the weather has changed, we had our 'false' spring on Saturday and Sunday, with the beautiful sunshine, tee-shirt wearing weather, family enjoying an Easter egg hunt around the estate, then yesterday, snow and freezing winds! Welly boots, hats, scarfs and gloves!  I think this is why it felt tougher for some of our runners in group 0 today, it's harder trying to run in the cold weather!

After the short sharp shock of the little hill we continued with the rest of the flat route, just like last week.  It took longer for us to warm up!  How crazy is our weather, eh!?  But we are all so very pleased to be here.  Tracy was finding it a bit of a struggle.  The thing is, we have all let us selves go, we just need to be kind to our selves, 'saying it's ok to be slower' but then kick our own arses and say 'Now get out there and work it".  I think the fact that we are all there is the 'kicking of own personal bottoms'.  Now that we are there, running, well, you might as well do it and do it well!  We can and we will!  That is our motto at the moment, something that we kept reminding everyone, 'we can and we will'  We will not hear or accept 'I can't!'

It is tough though, of course it's tough, we are all that little bit heavier, we are all that little bit less fit than we used to be a year ago.  We really have to start back at the beginning, only this time we know what the end results can be!  We know what we are capable of, the miles we used to run, the speed we used to do!  We know we can get back there! And who knows, we could even improve on our best performances that we have done in the past!  We should not let anything convince us that we can't do it!  We can and we will!

I forgot to take pictures, again!  I should do it first thing!  SnappyHannah needs to back to her routes I think!  Anyway, this is our route with the geeky stats.  I took them a little further than last week, just a little further, and next week I shall take them to the next road.  With the little extra distance and a cheeky little hill, it will be a bit of a challenge!