Last Beginners Session

Hello blog lovers.

Well what can I say!  The last session before the beginners do their first ever park run, a 5k route around Normans Park.  And an absolute huge congratulations to Hels and ZippySherry for getting nigh on most of the people that started  the course 8 weeks ago to this point!  There must be at least 30 people still here!

The weather wasn't too bad, a bit nippy, but then it is morning!  But at least its not raining.  I could tell there were a few people probably a bit weary of todays 14 minutes run and 3 minutes walk.  I think originally it was planned to only have a 1 minute walk!  But we are not brutes!  We like to help people to achieve what they thought was impossible but we also like to keep that bit of fun involved.  And it is fun, when you can chat away with people who are doing the same thing as you do, that is fun!

After our warm up drills and a lap around the green we split the large group into 3 groups!  With 6 leaders we had a leader and a sweeper for each group.  Of course I was sweeper in the group that I was put with and DiscoRich was leader.  We were going to do two laps which would cover about 2.5 miles.

The first group went out of the main gate and turned left and then left again.  The route was to go up Hazelmere, Great Thrift and Woodside, and then turn left onto Petts Wood Road, before turning left into Crossways again, and then repeat.  Our group was second out of the gate and we turned right to do the same route but in reverse, and then the third group came out and turned left.

I was quite pleased to be doing the opposite of the other two groups as then we have those nasty little hills along Woodside and Great Thrift going in our favour!  With the long part being our down hill! Although I should be promoting that 'Hills are fun, hills are our friends, hills are good!' But I think what I need to promote really is that running is fun, and although its great to run, what may have turned into your nemesis of a hill, and it's great to out run the person in front of you, what you should never do is out run the fun of running!

As our group was running down Woodside we met up with the first group and a big high five from Hels as we passed each other.  The group that I was in had a mixture of faster runners and slower runners, and we were creating a great coloured snake of runners as we kept up with our 14 minutes of running. They all did really well. And when the first of the 3 minutes of walking started we were already back on to Crossways!  The front of our group were walking back to us so that we could all start off again together for our second 14 minute jog sessions.

It was a perfect session, with all runners keeping the 14 minutes of jogging going!  I couldn't see anyone taking a walking break in those 14 minutes!  Now they truly are ready for the Park run.  Just as we were at the end of our second14 minutes of jogging the rain just started to come down.  Just to cool us down at the right moment!

I am really looking forward to Park Run on Saturday as the beginners do the run, some of them this is the furthest they have ever run!  It's going to be simply brilliant!

Geeky stats, not bad for beginners, eh?