A late change to our planned run led us to prison! However, just to do a good deed.

First, the exciting news about Laurie's first ever Half Marathon in Cambridge on Sunday...She smashed it with a time a smidge over 2 hours at 2:00:44. We are all confident that she will go sub 2hrs next time, well done Laurie. Also in the race was Ken who finished in 1:21, well done to him as well.

With a bit of drizzle falling, 11 runners headed out of the Uni but with a warm of toe and heel walks, lunges, heel kicks.

Arriving at the prison entrance where Ormiston welcome their visitors, we found the walkway strewn with all sorts of rubbish. Julie, Laurie, Joseph, Joel, Lindsay, Rachel and James quickly got to work collecting it all up while David, Andy Abdalla went down the separate path to the church yard and cleared up down there. We then disposed of the bags in the dustbin and headed a mile into town for some fitness in the park.

Two sprints at 75/80% of their sprint speed warmed everyone up for the next session.

A 1k route was described and the session was a handicap race. Based on the parkrun PB's the runners we set off at various staggered times with the objective that everyone would finish about the same time. The theory is great and it almost worked, but I think Joel's parkrun time needs working on as he stormed home first despite setting off towards the end of the line. We then recovered and headed back to the Uni for a warm down or is it cool down?

Our next social is 14th March with a quiz at the Golden Fleece.

Hi All,

What lovely weather it’s been lately, still can’t believe its February. lol

Before I get started, I want to give a warm welcome to Abdalla for joining us on his first group run with us. Hope you enjoyed it and hopefully see you again soon.

As I said, what lovely weather we are having of late and that its perfect running weather only makes it better. We met as usual at the ARU gym and to my surprise Adam was a full 10 minutes early #shockedemoji. After composing myself and realising this wasn’t a dream, we caught up with each other, did a head count and then set off doing our warm ups along the ARU campus. As usual as we stopped at the traffic lights, we did our customary squats while the lights changed

Our task was to do some litter picking along the river bank in the city centre along a route that is well used and collects rubbish. David met us at our starting point with the litter pickers and bags and gloves so we could really get stuck in.

Breaking up into smaller groups we worked our way along both sides of the river with people getting right into the bushes get as much as they could. At one point I thought we might lose Emily (see photo).

We worked our way along until we reached the bridge by the records office where we re grouped tidied away our picking equipment and celebrated a job well done in true Goodgym fashion. With a fartlek…………..

The session was to jog the first bridge then down path until we reached the second bridge, where we walked over. Then on the other side started running at our parkrun pace along the other bank and over the third bridge until almost back to where we started with a sprint finish. The kicker is that you don’t stop but go straight into the second lap. Using the jog and walk to bring your heartrate back down as an “active recovery” before trying to raise it again.

As always WELL DONE EVERYONE , you never disappoint in the energy and effort you bring to the task and the fitness session and I hope that it’s something you can take away and use when you go out for a run.

We caught out breaths and split into 2 groups. One group helped take the rubbish sacks to the bins just off the high street while the other went for a longer run. Meeting back at the ARU gym we stretched off and discussed the upcoming social which we will be going to do the pub quiz at the Golden Fleece on the 14th March.

Hope everyone who came enjoyed the fartlek and who knows, we might do some again in the future lol.

Good luck to Laurie at the Cambridge half marathon this weekend (you’ll smash it)!!!!

See you all soon

Run Happy

Rich