Glorious sunshine and blue skies greeted the Leicester Goodgym runners as we met for our weekly run. We welcomed Shobha and Mark to their first run with the group and we were promptly underway along the canal, dodging the Leicester fans as they came in the opposite direction towards the King Power.

Mel acted as runner tonight, I didnt fancy carrying a ream of papers in my back pack so she drove it down to our assembly point in Belgrave.

Lindsay has kindly responded to my appeal for a new run leader to take over from Faye, she will be doing her formal Goodgym training in a week or so but for the time being she will be shadowing me, so starting as we mean to go on I asked Lindsay to lead the front whilst I ran the tail with Shobha.

We arrived at Belgrave circle after a pleasant 20 min jog along the waterway, a bit of unoriginal banter from a group of football fans livened up the proceedings.

Mel was waiting for us with some 400+ leaflets for posting notifying residents that the Marathon will be passing through their patch in a few weeks time. So working in pairs, runners were despatched to designated streets and instructed to be back to the muster point by 7.30pm.

Of course, once again the power of Goodgym was underestimated, Mel and Shobha and Nic and Mark returned after only a few minutes... all letters posted. A couple of runners joined us direct at the muster point, Zoe and Surinder had run down from Birstall and it gave us the option of an extra street which they duly obliged.

With all leaflets pushed through letterboxes it was time for a bit of running activity and for the first time ever Leicester Goodgym was led by a fully qualified coach... err that would be me then! Thanks for all your support and good wishes I am pleased to say I passed my assessment last weekend and can now officially be called "coach"

Some great efforts and top techniques were on display in our "flying thirties". Standing by and watching its quite amazing to see the difference it makes to speed when you really think about driving with your arms.

With darkness falling a new route was taken back to base thus avoiding the unlit waterway, what a shame, I love the rivers but another couple of weeks and it will be out of bounds both out and back.

Same again next week folks, we will do the remaining streets off Belgrave Rd, I just need another 500 leaflets... dont forget your headtorches and hi viz.