10 awesome runners ran 5km to help out at the Royal Hill Community Garden!

So it's 11 weeks to go until The Big Half and we had 10 lovely runners flock from all over South East London for the 2nd in the series of 4 Big Half Starter Sessions!

We dropped off our bags, did a little warm up down the street and then made our way to the garden! After a few minutes of running, we were joined by one more runner so I went with Claire to the gym while Ben took the gang to the garden with a little detour I believe?!?!?! Oops! But we all got there in the end, safe and sound!

After a lovely warm welcome from Patrick (which was needed in these FREEEEZING conditions!), he explained the tasks that needed doing, the main one being to transfer these cute little plants into the nice big pots and to the flower beds! There were also some bulbs to be planted too, so lots to be getting on with!

Everyone grabbed a set of gloves and got stuck in! Patrick pretty much gave us free reign, we could plant pretty much anywhere we liked! No rules here!

After about 30 minutes or so, all the plants had been taken out of their little black plastic shells and put into a more permanent home. We took a few photos, checked to see if frostbite had taken any fingers, and then headed on our way, through the beautiful Greenwich Park and then down towards the university where we did our fitness session!

Speed is key!

A lot of the time when people go for runs, they tend to do just that... go for a run, with no real element of structure, just perhaps a distance in mind, and all runs tend to be of roughly the same pace just varying distances. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that at all!! But including a few faster bursts in your running (even just once a week) will help with your running form and efficiency and ultimately make you a faster, better, stronger runner! And who doesn't want that?! Plus it just mixes it up and makes it a bit more interesting!

So with that in mind, for our fitness session we did 3 progressive laps of the square with a 60 second rest in between each one, with the main goal being to get faster on each lap. So it teaches you to control your running when you first set out and then run harder when you are feeling tired which is similar to what you should be doing when running the half marathon - you don't want to start out too fast because you want to be able to finish strong at the end!

Anyway, you all did AMAZING and I believe there was a 100% success rate with everyone getting faster over each lap which is perfect! And it's such a simple thing that you can incorporate into your runs that you do yourself, just a few short faster bursts every now and again and you will thank me!

After we got our breath back, we headed back for a little stretch and called it a day!

Training plans

Some/most of you mentioned you weren't following a particular training plan for the half, and again there is nothing wrong with that at all, but if you did want to have a look then there is a complete beginner's training plan here which is 13 weeks long and yes, I know we only have 11 weeks to go but from what I saw today, you were all strong enough runners to skip the first two weeks of the plan. Or for the more experienced runners, or those of you that can already comfortably run 5km, there is a 9 week training plan here which is a bit more detailed and includes some structured runs of different paces. By all means have a look at both and see which one feels right for you or take bits from both, but I would definitely recommend to have some kind of rough plan in place just so you know that you have done the appropriate training which will give you more confidence on the big day!

Next starter session

The next starter session run will be on Saturday 13th January and you can see all the info and sign up here! Or of course feel free to join us on our Wednesday weekly group runs, which start back up again on 3rd January :)

It was great to meet you all! Good luck with your training over Christmas! Feel free to drop me an email if you have any questions about anything and I would be happy to help! Hopefully see you in the new year!

Merry Christmas!!!!!!

Sarah x