This was a group run with a difference!

10 runners met at AR Uni ready for an exciting fitness session, then a special invite to Chelmsford Cathedral for a Christmas carol service arranged by Mencap.

We started the fitness session by preparing ourselves with some warm up exercises and headed off to the ‘Avenues’ a short run away.

There are seven Avenues, with 1st Avenue being 425m long and decreasing to 7th Avenue at 235m, a popular place to do efforts. It was a group jog up 1st Avenue and a 80% effort down 2nd Avenue and so on until we got to 7th Avenue. Great efforts by James, Paul, Ally, Laurie, Henry, Rachel, Henry and Catherine up and down all of them.

The faster runners had to run back up the avenue to the last person which was Rich mainly, except for 7th Avenue…!

Now, 7th Avenue is a Strava segment so everyone was challenged to run down the avenue as fast as they could to see how we as a group did, Rachel stormed off and got a crown for her efforts! Rich blasted through everyone to get to the bottom but way off the crown, he now so much wants!

After a short rest to recover we headed back to the Uni and then onto the Cathedral for the carol concert. As Ally got to the underpass first, she had to do a wall squat until the last person got to her.

Time to exercise those vocal chords with Christmas Carols.

A very special thank you to Grace for inviting us, it was a really uplifting concert with amazing singing and a fantastic brass band. We normally never see anyone when we do a task at Mencap so it was really great to see everyone who is involved there, the performances by the members of Mencap were excellent a real privilege to see and hear them.

Next weeks task is to Broomfield Hospital led by Ken, make sure you sign up early.