This evening in Solihull 5 superb runners ran 4km to help clear litter and keep tidy Tudor Grange Park.

On a damp evening in Solihull we welcomed along Andy for his first Goodgym run, great to have you onboard, please give him a cheer! With Rob away this week it was over to me to lead by first run in Solihull. We began outside tonight for our introduction and warm up. We heard from John who had run the London 10000 over the weekend clocking another sub 40 time and very close to a PB, great running! Once briefed on our task tonight and suitably warmed up we headed off on the short run to Tudor Grange Park for our litter pick. Once there Liam identified a wooded area that had been a hotspot previously, again it turned out to be so and the team got to work. Being a smaller group tonight we decided to stay together so we had three people grabbing the litter and one with the bag. Once a good sweep was complete of the area we moved on and soon found our interesting item of the night, an abandoned official (possibly) iphone charger, we all agreed this was very much Solihull style litter! Soon had our first bag full and placed down ready to be collected. We did a short run over to the next spot by the cycle track and began work again with the team working fast to clear the next section. Our final stop was another wooded area this time which houses the BMX track. With our second bag full and our litter picking time up Chris kindly ran the bag to our pick up location and we all met up by the benches for the fitness session!

Tonight the fitness session was all about working those key running muscles using just our body weight. To begin we used benches which offer a fantastic means for a workout. We did 2 x upper body and 2 x lower body alternating between each. We worked for a 1 minute on each exercise that included squats to the bench, lunge with a foot on the bench, dips and press ups on the bench. The team put in great efforts, Andy powering out the press ups, John showing great technique on the dips, Liam nailing the squats and Chris keeping up great consistency on each. After all that you thought we would be done but there was more! Working in partners one exercising on the spot while the other did a fast effort to different objects in the park and back. We did ski squats, squat jumps, squat holds and fast feet sprints on the spot. Everyone did great, showing real effort to complete them all and work hard.

Finishing that it was now time to head back to base with a steady run. On arrival back we completed those all important stretches and got a group photo outside. Thanks everyone for joining today and welcoming me along. Rob will be back on next week where a litter pick of Brueton Park will be the task, please sign up for it here

Thanks again, have a good week and see you all soon!