Summer Is Here At Last!

Hello blog lovers.

I just love summer time!  I think it is finally here for good now.  It was a bit overcast this morning, but it was warm!  I took  the child to school and then came back and started to tidy up my house before it was time to go to the rec.  But then I had a text from Wendimoo that she had just missed a bus so I was on a mercy dash to go and get, I don't want her losing her running mojo!  She managed to a bus to Crown Lane Spur and I was on my way to get her from there, but then a traffic Jam!  Temporary traffic lights just where I didn't need them!

Cut a long story short, I managed to collect her and we got to the rec just a little bit late!  Fortunately I managed to get a message to the group before I left  on the mercy dash, so the lovely ladies were waiting there for us.  Vaishali was a little late too as there was no parking in the rec!  She was having to hunt around for a parking spot.

My route was going through the woods, up the blimmin hill again, just to see if I can do it, and then I wanted to head towards Roddendrum Walk to see if they were in bloom yet.  We started our run, out of the gate left turn, up to the top of the road and then left towards Dog Poo Ally.  Michelle was running with us today, I think she was wanting a nice gentle run, not running with the faster runners today.

We had quite a nice group and it was such a brilliant run.  It was a bit faster than the Wednesday group, and I was hoping that I could do Goss hill justice.  The sticky puddles are gradually drying up, just need a few more dry days and it will be totally dry.  Then we will need to just be careful over the uneven floor!

Goss Hill was the next challenge, we had a little bit of a breather.  The two faster ones went up first, Michelle and Trish, then Vaishali next, with Wendimoo and finally me, Janet and Kat bringing up the rear!  The first three was just attacking the hill, just moving so quickly to get to the top.  I just wanted to get further today than yesterday, I focused as best as I could.  I passed Wendimoo and then then kept going!  I think I got as far as I did yesterday before I stopped running!  My heart was almost pounding out of my chest!  I walked for a bit and then finished the run up to the top of the hill to the cheers or the others!  Then we or I should say they cheered on the rest (I was still trying to put my lungs back in place!)

After that it was quite a nice paced run all the way to the next hill!  It is a cheeky little blighter of a hill after all that we had done, and it certainly does challenge us!  I again just couldn't quite get to the top of it in one!    We ran along the top of the woods, towards the woodmans cottage.  I was wondering if he would be out in the woods today, would be so nice to show the girls that he does exist, not just in my mind!  And then we saw it.......no not the woodman, the Rhododendron walk.  The flowers were indeed in bloom! We couldn't wait to get down there running along the walk!  Just so beautiful!

Not a great picture
but you can see the flowers

For the rest of the run we kept up a nice steady pace all the way back to through Dog Poo Ally, we saw group 2 running along to the rec, so we were perfectly timed this week!  A stretch out afterwoods in the rec and it was all done for another week!

This is us, Vaishali was taking the picture!

Geeky stats

Thursday Evening

Now for the past few weeks I have been doing track sessions with PhysioMike (Fizzy for short)  and CoachHels.  I happened to notice on the facebook page that it was quite a tough session planned for the evening.  However, I wasn't going to be doing that!  Not because it was tough but it was because Core Training and Speed sessions had started up again in the rec!  I do love these sessions, they are tough as well, and fun.  And I really do need to get my core trained!

There were about 19 people for the first of the years sessions, DiscoRich was taking the lead, and he had bought along all sorts of stuff, cones, batons, egg and spoons!  As it is summer and lighter in the evenings now kids come along too!

We started off with a couple of warm up laps gently jogging around the green, and then straight into drills.  Then the fun and games started.  DiscoRich had laid out five lots of cones, in each line there were five cones.  We were going to be doing the pyramid running, to cone one, then two, then three.  Each of us in turn, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! Running to each cone and back again.  tagging out team mates when we got back.

After that came the core training section.  Planks, and Russian twists and what not!  Just what I need on my flabby middle. Then came another running section, the Parluufs, that we all love to do, its another speedy session.  Relays, all the way around the green!  It was tough!   I had put my Garmin on from the beginning, to see how many miles I had done, to see my heart rate etc, but it seems to have failed!  Never mind.  ! We finished bang on time with some cool down stretches to make sure that we don't all seize up.