If Carlesberg could do running clubs!.........Need I say more! Flippin love this this club! Every year that goes by I just love this club more and more. I still find it amazing that I belong to this club, that I actually kept my running going. I know I have quite a few new readers with me, and unless you go right back to the very beginning of my blogs, (and my goodness have I written a shed load of blogs over the years) then you may not realise why I started running in the first place. It was bought back to me on Sunday actually when my good friend Tracy gave me the tee shirt that all 20 of us, back in 2008 wore for the very first run that I did! (with out cheating/cutting short a lap, that is) It was the Race for Life in the City of London. There were 20 of my family and friends that were running in memory of my mum who died in the November 2007 from that bloody cancer shit! I was a large, lumpy lady, wrong side of 40, never ever done anything as energetic before. I actually wondered if it was dangerous to even start anything like that. It was, in fact, around about this time, ten years ago that I started my running 'career'! How cool is that. And now look at me, a large lumpy lady, wrong side of 50 but bloody fitter than I was 10 years ago! Plus, I am a leader of a running group, plus I have made some of my bestest friends being here in PWR.
So todays run was all about PWR and just the fact that we are all the most friendliest group ever! It is one of my favourite events in our calendar, it brings all the groups together in one place. It still don't bring all the members together, some can't be here on a Tuesday! I expect the woods during a PWR Midsummer run would have every single path full of PWR'S Do you think I have mentioned PWR's enough in this paragraph!?
It was slightly different from last year, we were all to meet in the rec, form our groups and then run! The official Club Photo will be shot at the drinks station which is Paulines' house! We still had all the leaders giving out their route, mine went something like "We are heading for the pub......meet over there" Of course I meant drinks stations, which was supply water, beer, lager, prosecco! So you can see why I kept things brief. In fact most of the other leaders kept it just as brief, with WendyLC saying "We're following group 1" And really our route was one of the most easiest routes to follow. A straight out and back, it's easy than trying to figure out which way to go home after the visit to the drinks station!
All the groups were pretty large today mainly because the groups were combining together. apart from group 1 and 12. But group 1 still had 20 runners! A fantastic amount of runners. After our count up and quick briefing of where we were going we started our run. We managed to get ourselves out of the gate before group 2 and so reached Dog Poo Ally before them. But they were hot on our tails as we came through the ally all merged as one! I waited until group 2 members all came through and gathered around their leader, WendyLC while my group 1's all stayed with me. We were now going to be following behind them as we all head down the left path, our destination is Botany Bay Lane.
We were not far behind group 2 as we ran along to the rail way bridges. I had a catchup by the bridge and I watched group 2 run along the path towards the down hill stretch to the stream. After we all got together again we ran along the path by the rail lines and then the lovely downhill section to the little river. Group 2 had already disappeared from us now, they were going along the left hand path, going up Goss Hill with her group. I was taking my group straight up, up, up to the very top of Botany Bay and the turning left to run towards Summer Hill. By this time some of the faster groups had got to this point and we made way for them, group 2 caught up with us again and passed us by. You could tell we were pretty close now to Paulines house! It was just a little further up the road, and boom baby! There it was! A great layout of our buffs and kit bags for member to buy.....and then the free drinks table! Bloody brilliant! Nobody was in a rush to leave. In fact, it was planned this way! Run to Paulines, enjoys some drinks for 20 to 25 minutes and then run back to the rec! Oh and of course the club photo taken at this spot! It's a great opportunity for everyone in every group to mingle and chat and laugh and share with all! Everyone is in good spirits, everyone is chatting, laughing, drinking! I can't tell you how great it is! Well, I can of course, it's bloody great! But it has to come to an end. After our photo was taken, there was time for one more drink and then the run back home.
So, you remember I said we had 20 runners leaving the rec in group 2, well on the way back we had 22! It was the same as last year! I can't understand how that happens! Well, when there is a beer in your belly, the last thing you really want to do is to pelt it on the way back! I certainly didn't want to! In my group there were at least 6 leaders! So I did what all great leaders did, I delegated RefMichael to lead the way back, supported by Nigel showing us the short cut. This is us running towards Botany bay Lane,
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| Totes emosh |
A truly fabulous way to spend a Tuesday evening club night! Not only that, but we actually covered about 4 miles! Fantastic for a group 1 run!
Geeky stats!
<iframe src='https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/embed/2789821223' title='Mid Summer Run (Leading)' width='465' height='500' frameborder='0'></iframe>
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