Tonight we welcomed new runner Stacey to the fold who told me about her amazing family of runners, sounds like she has a lot to live up to but she got off to a cracking start with us! And welcome back to Lauren who rejoined us for the first time since the launch. A special mention also to Martin who is now the only person who has attended every run since our launch and he’s also been over to Worthing for a couple of tasks as well. And a really well done to Frances who got a huge PB at Preston Park parkrun at the weekend knocking off more than 2 minutes from her previous time. Great stuff!

We had a good warm up where we went through the reason we do certain drills every week. The high knees and heel flick drills are essentially to get your muscles used to working that range of motion so you can use that movement to improve your running form. After practicing those drills we then tried to incorporate them into our running style by getting a good cycling action going with our legs and lo you were all transformed into graceful running gazelles! I know it feels a bit weird to start and the movement was quite exaggerated but you really did look like pros!

It was just a short run tonight to our task helping One Church in the town centre sort out their rusty railings. One Church are a great organisation with a number of projects to help young and old alike. They offer free training to young people to be baristas and they have a social club for the elderly to help prevent social isolation. They also are a night shelter for the homeless during the winter months.

Tonight was phase one of the job and our mission was to scrub and sand all the loose rust and paint off in preparation for when we return to undercoat and paint. We split the group in half and put one half to work on the task . Donning protective gloves and eye masks we set to work with the stiff brushes and sand paper. We made great progress and shifted a lot of rust, although I think another week of prep is needed with some different tools so we can reach all those awkward nooks and crannies!

The other half of the group went to The Level for an interval speed session of laps around The Level. The aim was to do each rep of approximately 650m in the same time and most of you did, a lot of you even getting faster with each rep once you were warmed up.

At half time we swapped the groups so everybody had a turn at doing good and keeping fit!

Sign up for another one next week!