Club Run - Spooky Times

Hello blog readers.

NaggyNeighbour drove us this evening, we picked up Tracy and got to the rec! There were already loads of people there, a good turn out considering! It was an interesting night to go for a club run! All Hallows Eve, running along dodging, ghosties and ghoulies! One PWR even came along with his face painted!  Although no one came in black, well, most people were wearing hi vis or had lights on them. Maybe next year I will try to remember to bring some 'treats' so that I can give out some sweets to the kids, it will make a change from taking sweets from the public! At least that way we won't get egged, I do believe that another group had to dodge 'egg missiles'!  They went down the same road that we were heading down!  So they  'cleared' the way for us!

Anyway, I gave out my route and the pace, and distance, as indicated on the new paddles! Yes, that's right!  We have these new 'paddles' with a great big number printed on them, obviously the one that I was holding was the number 1, it also has on it the pace, the distance in miles and kilometres, depending if you are old money or new money! I stood by the side with my paddle held high and waiting for all of my group 1's to join me!

I had one new person that joined me, she hasn't been running for quite some time, I really wasn't sure how she was going to do.  But if you don't try, you don't know.  If it's not right for her then there is always the beginners course in the spring next year!  It's not that far off really!  So I had 9 of us in the group, Michael was joining us this evening, it's always lovely to have him with us but I am missing some of my regular crew!  Tracy is with us and Kathy and Auriol. 

I had planned on running up Birchwood but when I found out that I had a newbie with me I decided to do my nice and easy route, up Kingsway and then it's fairly flat after that, all the way to the rec.  Unfortunately with just the the run from the rec to Kingsway our newbie decided that she just wasn't ready for group running.  Tracy suggested to her that she comes along to the next beginners group.  I just hope that she wasn't too disappointed.

We carried on our run and we bumped into group 2 who told us that some little darling ghoulies had thrown eggs at them!  Kids being kids, but I wonder how they would have felt if the eggs were taken from them and thrown at them!?  We ran and walked all the way around the 3 mile route today, and we were all pretty tight together, even though there is still a gap between the front runners it wasn't that much this evening! 

It was a great run, I had fun, it was good seeing all the kids out with the buckets, the houses decorated, although, I do think that we have succumbed to the hype of halloween, trick or treat!  How did that happen? Oh well!

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Blogs! At Least 3!

Hello readers!

Well, it's been a stressful and a happy week or so!  Daughter getting married must be THE highlight of the year!  The wedding went off without a hitch and of course the bride looked gorgeous!  Here, take a look for yourselves!

Before the wedding though, last Thursday on the 19th of October, I managed to get a run with my pals in the morning.  We had a great time, just the 5 of us, I took a picture of us when we got to the little river, here, this is us about half way through our run.

Paula, K, PinkLadyJo, me and Tracy!

I didn't run again until the Saturday morning, the day after the wedding!  I know! Crazy eh!  But it was the beginners session.  I wasn't sure who was going to turn up from PWR's as it's the school holidays, so I just had to be there to make sure they had someone to encourage them.  It was only doing the repeat of the week before, so we ran for 6 minutes and then walked for 2.  There were actually loads of PWR's there, including DiscoRich who was thinking that he would be leading the beginners.  Michael even turned up with his whistle, just in case too!  I tell you, it makes you proud to be part of a great team and a great club, the way we all just muck in and get on and do things!

My next run was of course the club run, I had actually already written a blog about that.  I just wasn't feeling up to trying to remember all about the other runs.  I am still trying to remember what happened on them now!  So now, I am up today!  This mornings run.  It's Thursday, so it's a nice gentle run through the woods.  The weather wasn't too pleasant, we had that fine rain coming down.  I made sure that had my old 'muddy woods' shoes on.

Tracy was with me, I picked her up this morning, and we met up with Auriol and loads of other runners!  But they were all in the faster groups, 1 2 and 3 (for some reason on a Thursday morning, group 1 is the faster group!) I was just going to do a small loop around the woods, I wasn't feeling to well anyway, I think I have a cold starting! Tracy is suffering a little too, with an pain in her leg!

We all left the rec, we were last out and we headed for poo ally.  I took the left path planning to run all the way up Botany Bay lane, rather than going to Goss hill.  I knew that Tracy would be a little behind but we could always do loop backs.  I also make sure I wait at where the path meets other paths, I don't want Tracy getting lost in the woods!

It went well, we had a good run, with a few stops and a great chat.  I do like Thursday morning runs, and I am quite glad I went as this evening the cold bug has taken hold and I feel blimmin rotten now!  Sniffles, sore throat and headache!  Oh well. No track for me this evening, just curling up in my blanket with a lempsip!

Geeky stats for this morning run are not here!  I had forgotten to put turn on my Garmin!  I also had my tee-shirt on back to front and according to Tracy I just looked as if I wasn't 'there'!  And that was just the beginning of the cold!

Oh, and because I don't have any geeky stats, here are some mushrooms we saw on our run last Thursday!

Club Run!

Hello blog readers.

This evening is our club run!  It's also half term and that means that some of our members go away for a few days during the school holidays, so numbers were depleted in all groups, but in my group the numbers were really down!  When I had a count up there were only 2 of us!   So I made an executive decision that we will join group 1.5 and swell their numbers as they were somewhat depleted too!  Just then three more people joined us, one of the new group 1 ladies from last week, one of our regular group 1 ladies and a chap who usually runs in group 6!  But he decided to run along with us in group 1.5 as group 6 had already gone!

Newly qualified LiRF Joanne was our leader in group 1.5 and I was sweeper along with IllustriousLeader.  I knew that a couple of my group 1's will find it a little challenging this evening and I didn't want then to feel as if they were holding anyone up.  I could always take my group members on a shortened version of Joannes route!  We were kind of doing the route that I was going to do anyway, with just a couple of different roads thrown in.  So I knew that the group 1's can do this.

Joanne was a fabulous leader, she kept a tight reign on the front runners, not letting them pull us along too hard.  The route was a nice route, with no hills, maybe just a very small incline, quite doable for us, even running at a slightly faster pace!  It was a fun filled run, we almost lost our group 6 runner to the Orpies, 'someone' thought that the group that was running along was our group 6 but it turned out that it was ORR's!  There was also some quizzing going on apparently as some of the members swot up on their general knowledge!

We in group 1 did take a couple of the shorter routes and got back to the rec a few minutes before the rest of the group, ready for the stretching, which Joanne delegated to me to do!  I loved it, and it also showed our group 1's what it's like in the next group up, whether they are ready for it, or even if they could actually move up to group 2! 

Geeky stats.

Solo Run

Hello blog readers

I got home early and decided I needed a run.  With a weekend of very little running, a little too much drinking on Friday and indulging in  chocolate I really needed to get out.  The wedding is just a couple of days away, I am panicking just a little, "Is everything done, have we done all that we need to do"  I don't want my little girl to miss out on a thing!  She's a good girl and a very good mum.  I am immensly proud of her.  And now soon, very soon, she is going to be a wonderful wife to a very lovely man!  So, no pressure to make sure it goes all as planned! A plan that she herself has done!

I was in the house for only a few minutes before I went upstairs to get changed and out of the house.  It was still light out, but I think it will be dark by the time I get back, it's only 6 o'clock and I am thinking about getting home in the dark!  Where has the summer gone!  I miss the summer already, happy feelings, warm feelings, getting together with friends and family.  That's what I love. Still, time moves on, seasons change.  Maybe I should try and embrace autumn and winter. 

I was running along Farringdon Avenue, thinking about all sorts, getting emotional, stressing, when I heard a 'beep beep'  it was NaggyNeighbour!  I stopped for a few minutes to chat with her, talk about the wedding, saying how my mum would have loved this wedding!  Still, it is what it is, it's going to be a wonderful day watching my little girl say 'I do' to her man!  I carried on up the road feeling a little lighter, but still with thoughts racing through my mind!

I struggled all the way around my 5k this evening but I came back thinking 'At least I did it'  it's no big achievement, but it was a little bit of me time!

Geeky stats

Club Run - Enter The Newbies!

Hello blog readers.

This evening was one of those evenings when I just felt like I wanted to sit on my recliner, with my blanket over me watching crap t.v.  But I didn't, thank goodness I am a leader!  If I wasn't then I think I would most certainly have cried off running this evening.   

So to shake out any residual 'I don't want to be here's' my route included Tillingbourne Green!  It's a fabulous hill (did I just really say that.....write that?) It's a hill that when you have completed the little circuit you think to your self, "Yes I did it!"  This evening however was a little different!  When I arrived at the rec, and all the leaders had given out their route, pace and distance I went over to our pole to await all those running in group 1 this evening.  I was amazed to find not 1, not 2 but 4 newbies which included 2 returnees!  Kate, Hannah, Jasmine and Tendi (I think it's spelt like that) as well as our regular lovely ladies, Tracy, Auriol, Selena and Clair, so that's a lovely 9 of us running this evening.

I wasn't detered though, I still want to do the tough little route of Tillingbourne, well, it's only a couple more days before my daughters wedding.  I am trying to balance my weight, I don't want to lose anymore weight at the moment, because I don't want the dress that I bought to hang off me, but then I don't want to put it all back on either!  It's tough this 'maintaining' lark! 

There were quite a few runners this evening spread over all our 12 groups!  Our club gets bigger and bigger every year, we are such a popular club!  Even our own PWR 10k event is normally sold out weeks before the date, it's a 'most do' on runners lists of 10k's.  I wanted to get started pretty quick, so after having a count up, a quick welcome to the new comers (trying desperately to remember who's who) we were off!  Out of the gate, chasing one of the faster groups, I had to call a couple of my group back, just in case the got caught up in the faster group!  We crossed over the road and then group 2 passed us by, they were going to be running up Birchwood too!  Again I had to just gather my group in together, just like a mother hen, so as not to lose anyone!

We ran up Birchwood and then took a little break while we caught our breath and then continued on our way, turning right at the top.  I was hoping that the hills will not frighten off our newcomers, I feel sure that if they do this and look happy about it then they will deffo be back next week.  There really is no escaping hills in Petts Wood, so a baptism of fire will deffo be a good thing!

We crossed over the main road and then headed for Tillingbourne, it's down hill mainly, until we get to the green.  I pointed at the 'little' hill that we had to run up, some of them said "What we running up there?"  I didn't want to say to them that it was the smaller of the hills on the Green!  Why let them worry about it until it was necessary! Not that they would worry anyway!

The run around the green was good, the main body of the group all kept tight together, then I sent up the faster group 1's to run at their own pace.  Some people like to just run as fast as they could up hills, just to get it done, others like to take it nice and easy a steady pace all the way up, which is a very good way to get up hills.  I know some panic and start walking, I know that, because I used to do it myself, in fact I still do when I see a particularly nasty little hill!  The ones in the woods always get me puffing hard and getting me to walk some them!   But this little run around the green, up the longer hill I did it!

We had to run up one more hill to get to Petts Wood Road, and then we could enjoy the down hill all the way to Crossways!  All the ladies thought that was the end of our run, that we would run along to the rec from here.  But of course I do like to make sure that we have done a 3 mile route, and going along Crossways from here would leave us short!  There was only one way to go and that was up the last hill of the run.  I ran at the back with Tracy and I sent the faster runners up at their own pace along with Auriol, she had done a brilliant job of sweeping and now it was time to just let her have a little stretch of the legs and get a bit of speed going!

We ran up to the memorial hall, passing the fish and chip shop which smelled so good! Then we turned right and then right again so that we were running down Kingsway to Crossways!  Now our run was over as we made our way back to the rec to do some cool down stretches!  A fabulous run with some fabulous ladies, all still had a smile on their faces, so I feel sure they will be back next week to continue with their running!

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Three Blogs in one

Hello blog readers.

Club Night

After a very 'bad' weekend, consisting of booze (well just 3 pints on Friday night)  illness, (I am sure it wasn't due to beer)  two takeaways (left overs on Friday and full takeaway Saturday) and chocolate (chocolate was medicinal of course).  I was really ready for a nice gentle jog with group 1's.  I knew I had someone coming back to the club after not running for a while so I chose my 'go to easy route'.  The nice flatish one that everyone enjoys.

We had 9 in our group, a nice number.  Some of our group 1's have moved up to the new group 1 1/2, exactly like they should be doing!  It was a great run, we all more or less stayed together, and I could see that there are still some runners who could quite easily move up to the next group, but I am sure they will try next move up week, or when they have enough confidence!

I kept the faster ones occupied by letting them run ahead at a bit of speed, I had Michael with me, he just wanted to come along in our group just for fun!  That's what we are like in PWR, a friendly bunch, and we just love to chat to everyone, even if that means running in a slower group to do it!

Geeky stats

Thursday Morning Run

So fairly up to date now, this mornings run was done in just perfect weather conditions.  The sun was shining and everyone was so looking forward to going through the woods.  Illustrious Leader was here too, she will be able to come most Thursday mornings now! Brilliant!  My route this morning including hills, of course it does, it's in the woods, and besides which, I need to still lose extra pounds before the big day next week!  So we went in through the woods via Poo Ally and turned left.  I wanted to go straight up the path that the PWR 10k took, so not along the rail lines and up Botany Bay, we could still see the flour on the floor that was marking tree routes and possible trip hazards.

We ended up at the top of the woods and then still continued upwards as we headed into the big posh housing estate!  It's lovely this route, looking at the lovely houses.  It's a pity that it's not possible to do a winter nights run down there with my group because I can imagine Christmas lights would be amazing down there.

After running up to the top we crossed over and then ran through Scadbury Park and then back over the road to our woods, running all along the side of the road and then down along the rail lines to Poo Ally!  It was such a lovely run this morning, we took slightly longer than usual but it was so worth it!

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Track Session

I went to track session this evening, no shopping to do so no excuse not to!  I do enjoy track sessions though, I try very hard to push that little bit harder!  The session was an 8 minute warm up run and then 40 secs run with 30 secs rest, 90 secs run with 1 min rest, 4 mins run with 90 secs rest times by three!  It was pretty tough going, I didn't think that I would be able to keep going!  It sounds easy, mind you running for 6 minutes sounds easy, running sounds easy!  But it's not!  There were loads of runners there today, all trying their hardest, some are there training for the marathons, and for some that is coming in a about a weeks time!  Others are starting their training for the London in April next year.  Me?, well I am just trying to keep the weight off, initially, until the wedding, and then hopefully keeping it off and taking even more off!  I have proved to myself that I can do it, but then, with the stress.......excitement of the wedding finishing after next week I am hoping that I can still stay focused and not just give up and say, "well that's it then, all done, finished"

I must try to at least keep on losing weight and keep on with my training and running.  Getting in the doldrums would not be good, what with this stupid hormone changing thing happening I can imagine it would be quite easy for me to just say "Feck it, I can't be bothered!"  I must remember the feel good factors that come with finishing a run, race or track session with PhysioMiketheMod.

It was a great session, I kept going, I ran when I should have and I walked when it was rest!  I was working hard, even PhysioMiketheMod mentioned that I was sweating well, I didn't have enough breath to say to him that blokes sweat women glow!

Geeky stats

Solo Run

Hello blog readers

I had an early finish today, so I got back home, quick tidy up, put some washing on, put clean clothes away and chopped up some salad. There was only one thing left to do, and that was to get changed into some running gear.  I haven't been out running since Thursday and it was only the one in the morning as I had to go out shopping Thursday evening to get more stuff for the wedding!  I have been a bit under the weather since Saturday, in fact Friday I wasn't feeling 100% anyway, but I just put it down to tiredness.  This evening was the first since Thursday morning! 

Confession time, the weekend was full of big fat 'do not do's' if you are on a diet!  Beer, curry, takeaway, chocolate and in activity!  I really was feeling like crap!  I didn't even get out to do the beginners course because I was feeling ill.  Sunday I was feeling better, but still not right, chocolate seemed good to try and cure whatever it was I was suffering with!  Even this morning, in the early hours I woke up with a tummy ache!  It could be that I just had a very crap eating weekend!  Anyway, back on track this morning, it's only 2 weeks now to my daughters wedding, still time to lose a bit more weight....or at least to lose the extra pounds I just put on this weekend!

Well, that's the reasons and the excuses laid out for why this run was a particularly bloody hard one!  My legs just wasn't in it, my mind was somewhere else, just not on my running, my breathing was, well I was breathing, I guess that was good!  And my running style was just not even on a scale of bad to worse!  My head was down, I was tense and not relaxed at all!  My back was niggling just a bit which I think wasn't helping at all!  I tried to think about just being out, at least I am not sat on my chair watching crap t.v. eating yet more chocolate. 

Just running up Farringdon Avenue I could feel my shoulders starting to ache and had to just stop running and try to relax, shake out my arms and roll my head and neck and then get started again.  I started to think about my daughters wedding, try and get in a good mood, try and listen to some good tunes on my ipod.

Running along Southborough lane and my form is all but lost again, head down, and just not even trying.  I gave myself a telling off, after all these times running should be good!  "Head up Old Girl" I said, a still quiet voice was there, just briefly!  "Keep going, don't stop, no turning back, keep on running"  I thought, I just ran, head up, heart beating like crazy, just keep on running!  Before I knew it I was turning on to Turpington Lane and then on to Greenway.  On the way home now, passed the point of no return, back home for dinner, a nice salad with salmon fillets.  Hows that for healthy eating, mind you......there is still one last piece of chocolate......a pudding maybe!

Geeky stats.