Tuesday 7 March 2017

Club Run - Moving on Up!

Hello blog lovers.

Yes, it's that time of the month, move-up week!  My group is the only group that that goes out a tad harder than the other groups on a move-up week.  Let me explain why!  To encourage those who want to 'move-up' to the next group the leaders all run at the slowest of their advertised pace.  Me, in group 1, well, we don't have anyone come up to us, unless it's from the beginners twice a year. So to help us all with a little boost to know that we can push ourselves if need be, I throw in some hill training.

But this week we had a couple of returnees.  Returnees who have been injured, Ange and Ian! Along with our regulars, J.J., LittleJ, and Michael.  I was thinking that maybe I should opt for the easy route, I know last week we had a hill route, but I didn't ask them to run up the short hill more than once!  We are made of hard stuff, us in PWR.  We can do this!  I chose to do the very first route that we did as the new group 1, but in the opposite direction.  So instead of running up Birchwood we ran up the undulations of Hazelmere, Great Thrift and the other road, which I always forget what it's called and have to check on my Garmin map!  I think running this way is going to be easier!  I hate doing those roads at the end of my run, it always seems such a long way.  but doing them first, knowing that you are heading away from them, psychologically, feels better!  How'd you figure that? Or it could just be me!  Of course, after doing those undulations then we do have to run all the way up to where our little hill training spot is!

It was all going really well, we set off running at group 2 pace!  Even going up the undulations of Great Thrift etc at a good pace!  Well, that's not what move-up week is all about......for groups 2 to 11!  But for us, well, it just goes to show what we can do!  But we wont keep up that pace, not with the returnees, that wouldn't be fair!  Besides, we still got some more undulations to do!

We had a little break once we got to the top of Petts Wood Road.  Looking down and then up again to where we needed to be don't look as daunting.  Is it because I know we don't have to do the undulationy road again?  Is it because I know that to get to Crossways we are going to be running down Birchwood instead? Maybe!  It was here that Michael gave our Carole a call.  She couldn't run with us today so Michael thought that he would give her a call and we can all wave to her when we get to their house, which is just near our hill training road.  But first we had to get up the other side of Petts Wood road!

It was only about 7 minutes or so, just like Michael and said to Carole till we were waving to her as we passed by!  It's funny, because I can remember looking up these road thinking it would *take forever* (read that bit in stroppy teenager voice) to get to our destination!  Yet here we were, 5-7 minutes from the memorial hall to the 'hill' road!   We ran up and down our hill training bit a couple of times, Michael, Ian and Ange did an extra rep (yes I know, its all the people who are taking it easy doing the extra rep) Me and the girls just couldn't get out legs to do another one!

We were soon on the homeward stretch. As we were running toward Orpinton road I suddenly realised just how close we are to finishing!  It all felt really good today, I was feeling a bit annoyed with myself that I didn't do the third rep of the hill!  I had to check my Garmin to see what distance we had already covered.  It just felt like we were lacking in distance, but by then we had covered 2.60 miles!  Which, by the time we got back to the rec would be a perfect 5k or 3.1 miles!

We ran along Orpington and then turned left on to Birchwood.  I sent them off at their own to run to Crossways! I ran at the back with J.J. and LittleJ.  We saw a few of our runners on run this evening, group 3 highfived us as then came down Petts Wood in the opposite direction and we saw another group as we were running from Tillingbourne to Orpington Road too! And I think we were overtaken by three of the faster runners along Birchwood as they were finishing their run too!

A great run, great people, as always!  Petts Wood Runners always seem to attract the most friendliest people ever! I am looking forward to introducing all our new beginners into our club when they have completed the course in a couple of months! Anyway, here's our geeky stats.




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