This evening it looked as if the whole of club had turned out for this evenings run. Here, take a look at this picture, it's a bit dark but you can see them all lit up in their hi-viz! We now have 14 groups going out! Groups 6 and 7 have been split so there are two group 6's and two groups 7's, we just have so many runners now in our club!
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| Michael on the left in the yellow, with JJ. by his right elbow! |
In my group 1 however, there were 8 of us, 8 happy runners. I had told them that we were going to do one of the hilly routes in reverse which means that all of those hills that we usually run up, well, we will be running down! My group were very happy about that.....until K said, "Don't forget people, we still got to get up to the top of those hills before we run down them!" Happiness lasted but just a few seconds! Actually my group really love a hill......that's what I have been telling them they do anyway! The challenge for me is to make sure that I don't actually go the wrong way! I know that sometimes when I used to do a route in the opposite direction in the woods I get a bit lost! I am hoping that the road signs will be a more helpful than a familiar looking tree, or a certain little opening in the woods!
I was in two minds whether to add the little extra bit in the beginning of the run because usually that is the bit of route that I could cut out if we were running out of time! I was running along towards Kingsway, "Turn right or straight on" were the thoughts in my head "Stuff if, lets go for it, lets do the extra bit" I said out loud. Michael heard me, he was all up for it, but then he usually runs in group 3 or 4 or is it even 5 these days? He's doing brilliantly. But for this evening Carole and Michael wanted to run in group 1 today, just to run with their friends for a nice gentle one! Carole, we love ya!
We ran up Kingsway and turned left along Towncourt and then we had that lovely run down hill once we got the top of Petts Wood. It was round about then that my group was figuring out just where we were going! Yup, right up Petts Wood Road to the big round about, and then we were turning left. As long as we stay at group 1 pace we can do this. All the way to the top, non stop from Crossways, we can do it! And we did, Michael ran back to the back of the pack to stretch out his legs a bit more but we were really were running fairly tight together, not too big a space between me and the sweepers!
I was really enjoying my run, just a nice steady group 1 pace, chatting away to Michael and Carole, Alison and Selena. J.J. and Janet were doing brilliantly too. J.J. has had a couple of weeks off from running. People always 'fear' losing their fitness if they miss a week or two, but it doesn't go as quick as you think. As long as you take it nice and steady, all those running sessions before the break will not be so quickly forgotten! Getting up that hill and still seeing some smiling faces, you know that 'you got this'!
I took them along Orpington Road, past the Tillingbourne Green turning (I think they all secretly pleased about missing that little pleasure) and took them to Malling Park road. We are going to do the little loops around the streets, in the opposite direction of course, and then back to the main road to enjoy the lovely down hill of Birchwood! It seemed a lot easy going this way round, and also it took away those thoughts about which hill you walked on and which hills we struggled on and which hill we ran up. It's all backwards, it's all new, so we just had to see what we could do!
That running down Birchwood was great, relaxing, letting the hill do all the work. It's almost like a rest! I said that Michael could lead the faster ones back to the rec while I ran at the back with the sweepers all the way back to the rec. A brilliant run with some fabulous running friends! We love hills.......when we are running down them!
Geeky stats, its our K-9 route!
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