There was magic everywhere in Alvaston Park as dreams (of two new run leaders) hung in the air.

Ashley and Gwyn had completed the academic side of their England Athletics training, and today, as the sunshine filled our hair, we were put through our paces as they led us through warm-up exercises and training sessions for their Leader in Running Fitness (LiRF) training. Simon is a qualified Leader so as well as exercising with us, was acting in a supervisory role on behalf of England Athletics. Other GoodGym members, Jenny, Naomi and Tracey took part, and in times like this when you need a friend (or two), neighbours and family members also came along and joined in the fun!

The event had to be filmed, which isn’t an easy task when the sun’s in your eyes, but we got two successful sets of recordings from the evening.

Ash’s warm-up had us alternating between walking, running and stretching, all seemingly simple until we needed to rotate one arm forwards and the other backwards - no need to laugh or cry at the faces we pulled whilst trying to coordinate this! Gwyn got us warmed up with a slightly different mix of walking and running, adding a bit of skipping, some bounces and “high-knees” running on the spot.

For his main session, Ashley split us in two relay teams, wisely choosing team members so that the contest didn’t feel unfair and was a close-run race. Gwyn’s main session focused on technique – we were all standing up straight in the sunshine as if we had a balloon pulling our head up, and running with high hips and high toes. No need to run to try this posture, it’s useful for walking, too.

Simon gave some very positive feedback on the evening, and added some bits of advice that he’d picked up from his experience. All in all, it was a wonderful, wonderful LiRF, and we hope that England Athletics agree when they view the recordings.

Apologies to anyone who was hoping for film rather than song references – I’ve not actually seen the film... yet (that's my homework for this week!)