12 runners were keen to do good and work on their fitness this balmy bank holiday Monday.

After a brief warm up consisting of some dynamic stretches, we headed out on a slightly longer route than usual to meet task owner, Laura, to distribute fliers to local businesses in preparation for the new Aldgate Square Festival, a new, fun-filled community celebration of all that Aldgate has to offer.

The heavens open

We set out down Cambridge Heath Road, laughing as we heard the distant rumble of thunder. “Oohs” could be heard from the runners as the lightning and thunder seemed to edge ever closer, which quickly turned to “aahs” as the first few drops of rain were a welcome relief to the uncharastically humid May evening. The few drops, however, soon became a torrential downpour, which continued as we covered another 1.5 miles. We briefly took shelter in Aldgate East station but at the first sign of the rain abating, we carried onto our task.

Business as usual

Laura was suitably impressed that we’d arrived ready to spread the word - that, despite arriving completely drenched, as far as our task was concerned, it was business as usual. After dividing up into pairs to cover the whole of the area, we covered as many shops, pubs and restaurants as we could and arrived back punctually at our meeting point to head to Weavers Fields for some brilliant running form-work by Danny.

Top technical tips

Here, the team proceeded to run through three very effective drills: first up was the posture drill which involved running at 70% pace with a ‘wire visualisation’ (“visualise a wire pulling up and forwards through shoulders”). Next up was a partner exercise that addressed arm swing when running at speed, and we finished with a little knee-drive drill to really recruit quads and get them firing up nicely. Thank you Danny – that was a really effective and useful session.

We had a leisurely run back to base where, soaked through, we decided to postpone our team drink. To be continued…

What a team

Thank you to the whole team tonight, for an amazing effort. Thank you Charlotte, Bryon, Jess, Viola, Yesh, Si, Domitille, Ed, Danny, Alex and Ruth. Your resilience, determination and optimism was something else tonight. Thank you.

And very big thank you’s to Alex for fabulous backmarking in tough conditions, Bryon and Si for making the final route decision, and leading and navigating beautifully, and of course to Danny, for bundles of behind-the-scenes planning, and a brilliant, useful technical addition to the evening.

And onto next week...

Aaaand…I can’t WAIT to do it all again next week, when we’re Victoria Park-bound as we join the Borough's Big Clean Up event – sign up here!