Club Runs - Pleasure and Pain(?)

Hello blog lovers.

Group zero to Hero!

Tuesdays is one of my favourite days of the week, it's club running day.  And now my group Zero2Hero is going really well.  We had the same people as last week, with just a couple of people who couldn't make it, but we also had one new person, a chap called Nick, that came and joined us as well.

HitchyJo and SingstarJo couldn't assist me today but the delightful Julia offered to come along and run with the faster runners, which was Nick and Julie.  My route for them today was just probably a tad over 2 miles, taking in the hill first. The hill is the one on Birchwood, it's a good hill to take in when you are first practising with the whole hill thing.  I remember when I used to look at this hill and think, "Never will I be able to run all the way to the top" I can now, but still very slowly!  I don't think I will ever actually 'beat' a hill.  You know, they way the elites just fly over them as if they are a minor inconvenience.  Any way, the group all managed to get up there,  Julia with Nick and Julie just seemed to fly to the top and beyond, and me with Michelle, Michelle and Lisa making sure that today, the hill didn't win! 

Everyone did really well!  The next part of the route is a nice and easy flat route to the roundabout and then turn left to enjoy the hill again, only going down! Although I started my garmin it didn't find us until we got to this part of the run, or at least from here it said that had ran for only a quarter of a mile! But I thought we had done more than that!

At the bottom of this road we turned right to go along the nice undulating road, the nicer way, with the longer hill being the down hill.  The two Michelle's and Lisa were doing really really well, they only had a couple of walking breaks for just a few minutes, and then just carried on running!  I think soon they will be ready to get back to group 1.  Once we start on the speed bits then there will be no stopping them!  We were lucky with the weather too, this run was quite a pleasant run!

Group 1

SingstarJo was leading today, thankfully she was back from Cambridge to be able to do this as I.L. is still under the weather.  Her route was her (Non flat)Flat route, which takes in cardiac hill, but going the running down it instead.  I was sweeper at the back, I am not feeling a hundred percent anyway, so I knew I would be at the back. 

This week at club we are having 'moving up' week, where we encourage people to move up to the next group, and the leaders will run at the slower end of their predicted pace.  I think SingstarJo did a remarkable job of persuading group 1 runners to move up as our group today was over half the size as last week,, either that of the weather has put people off from venturing out of the warm homes!  The rain had just started, just ever so slightly, but the weathermen has said that we are going to be for some rain!  Oh well, hopefully we will be back before it really gets started!

We head off towards Willet Way en route for Cardiac Hill. I am really looking forward to running down here.  Just to let the hill do all the work, and pick up the pace and not to feel it, is one of the highs of my running! I'm sure it is the only time time that anyone enjoys going down hill! 

I ran along after the group floundering at the back, really enjoying the little walking sessions that a couple of the other back markers were doing! Our next official stopping for a regroup was at the off license.  I just hoped I didn't keep them waiting to long before I came over the little bridge, the rain was coming down a little harder now. 

From here we were going to run to Tudor way and then turn into the Fairway and run along to Townsend road and then up there, turn right and back into crossways! Simples.  When we went under the railbridge I noticed that the rain was really coming down quite hard.  I must have been really concentrating about keep up with everyone that I really didn't noticed the rain at all.  My glasses was steaming up, and my legs were feeling very cold and very heavy!  I was looking forward to the end of this run, to get home and showered up and a nice bowl of homemade soup and bread!  so as the title suggests, this was the 'painful' part of my running today, although really I enjoyed it!

It was a good run and it was a good route too!

Here is geeky stats for group 1 run. and it isn't 5 miles as the Garmin shows, my hands were so cold and wet and my glasses steamed up, that when I pressed the stop button on my garmin, I head the beep to tell me it had stopped.   But when I got home I realised that I must have heard SingstarJo's Garmin being turned off instead!  Anyway, the route was about 3.5 miles long.  Nice and easy does it!