7 runners (plus 1 awesome dog!) ran 2 speedy miles to clean playground equipment and weed the flower bed at The Bridge

Another beautiful Wednesday evening and another fantastic group! This week we welcomed new runner Angela and her amazing dog Pickles! Let's make her feel welcome and giver her a cheer here! We were also joined by Alex and Amy as well as Margaret, Anna and Ali who are becoming very regular which makes me very happy!

We started with a little warm up, as always, on the grass, but this time with a little twist because I brought some PROPS! Woo! Nothing exciting though, just some cones :) We played a little game and split the group in two, half turned the cones the right way up, half turned them upside down! I am sorry to say I definitely let the side down stopping to take photos, my bad! But you did great! A few high knees, star jumps and hip flexor stretches later we were off.

We set off down the main road and 10 minutes later we had arrived, hurrah! We were greeted by the lovely Raeleen and her super cute daughter Henrietta who had already laid out all the cleaning stuff for us! There were two mini projects at hand... cleaning the climbing frame and weeding the flower bed, so we split up and got to work! Margaret, Amy & Angela opted for the cleaning which also involved keeping Pickles amused by occasionally throwing a tennis ball! Anna & Alex got their gloves on and, after a few minutes trying to establish what was weed and what was plant, began to dig away over at the other end of the garden.

Ali arrives!!!

After 10 minutes or so, we were greeted by the lovely Ali, yay! Better late than never, I'm so glad you could make it! She joined team weed on the flowerbed situation. Meanwhile over in camp climbing frame, a lot of frantic scrubbing was going on and after numerous trips to the hose to fill up watering cans, Raeleen had a brainwave to connect two hoses so we could have a constant stream of water! Amazing! The climbing frame was getting cleaner by the second, Pickles was content, Henrietta was even helping out and the flower bed was coming on a treat!

Half an hour later and it was DONE! The hoses were rolled up and put away, last weeds chucked onto the compost and we said our goodbyes. This is also where we parted ways with Angela - thanks so much for coming, I hope you had a lovely time and looking forward to seeing you again soon!

RIVER RUN (sorry thought I'd throw in a Game of Thrones pun in there because why not)

The rest of us made our way back to base camp but this time took a slightly more picturesque route along the river. Super speedy run on the way back guys, really well done! It's great that you pushed yourselves and I want to see that every week!

We arrived back for the fitness session. Just a quick one this week, but quick doesn't mean easy! Mwahahahaha.

Did someone say Ciabatta?!

No TABATA! So Tabata is a type of high intensity interval training where you work for 20 seconds as hard as you can and then have 10 seconds rest, but you do that 8 times so the whole thing lasts 4 minutes. It's a great way to target all areas of the body, it gets your heart rate up, increases metabolism and improves both your aerobic and anaerobic fitness which will help with your running too.

The exercises were squat jumps, mountain climbers, ab twists & press ups. So we hit the legs hard with the squat jumps improving their strength and explosive power (good for sprinting!), we got the core with the mountain climbers & ab twists (strong core means your able to hold correct running form for longer) and we got the arms, chest and back with the press ups because we tend to neglect these areas a bit when all we do is run! I must admit I did feel bad giving this to you on a hot muggy evening but you really all smashed it and did SO SO SO well. Everyone pushed through to the end and no one gave up so really well done. You officially earned that ciabatta! ;)

Aaaand stretch!

After a nice relaxing stretch, we were done. FINITO!

Really well done last night everyone. You really gave it your all and I was really happy to see you push yourselves. Keep up the fantastic work and see you next week!