3k Thursdays

In my last post, I had a hare-brained idea; to start a running group aimed at beginners which would act as a support system and encourage more people to take to the streets and parks of beautiful Harrogate. 


Since then, things have been a little crazy - the response has been great; there are now over 100 followers of @RunHarrogate on Twitter and almost 40 people have signed up to take part.


We had our first session on Thursday; it was really nerve-wracking but everyone was lovely and 15 of us took part, with my physiotherapist, Vicky leading the warm-up. As it was the first session I really didn't know what to expect and other than seeking advice from the lovely Bangs and a Bun, I didn't really do much to prepare. I wanted to go with an open mind and see what kind of pace people were running before making any decisions, which worked out really well as the group fell naturally into three groups: Laid Back and Lovely, Caught in the Middle and Speedy Gonzalez. 


For the next session I plan to separate out the groups, choosing someone to lead the pace for each one - hopefully this will encourage some of the less confident runners. 


The feedback from the first session was fantastic, with pretty much all of the runners dropping me a little message to say how much they enjoyed it and how welcome they felt, which was great - mission accomplished! Hopefully everyone will take the group to their hearts and become proud of it - but more than that, I hope it helps everyone on the way to reaching their goals.


So all is going well, we have even created a little identity for it:

It's all fairly simple, but it seems to be working, so fingers crossed everyone still wants to come down and run as the weeks go by.

In other news, Lindsey and I are continuing with our preparations for the Berlin Marathon, and are clocking up a decent amount of miles per week. I was hoping to hit the big 50 miles on my blog counter by Monday but not sure that will happen now as I was forced to take a rest day today (my hip felt a little twangy on Friday - I have definitely learnt my lesson!).

On Monday I start the Lean Body Challenge, a three-week programme designed by Leeds fitness guru, Brendan Chaplin. It's pretty complex by the sounds of things so will post about everything's going when I've managed to get to grips with it, but from what I've heard he definitely gets results - hopefully it will get rid of the last of my baby podge!

Sam x