The Stragglers was, some felt back in the day, a little too serious for those just wanting a bit of gentle exercise and social running. So a separate group formed to cater for this cohort under the name of Little Feet. This was a play on the Stragglers logo which is a foot on the back of the distinctive yellow club shirt. The group still meet every week, there current home being The Swan in Hampton Wick. If I don’t run on a Sunday I often go out with them and this Monday I cycled down from Kingston Hill for the 7.30pm off. We form into groups and the one I joined ran at around 9mm pace for 5 miles in Bushy Park. Very nice run on a summers evening and i felt in good form.
Afterwards stopped at the pub for a couple of beers and a chat. Bumped into Tom Bedford who lives locally. Tom is the organiser of the Richmond Running Festival and we help each other with our events. We discussed the recent Richmond Park 10 mile race which despite massive publicity only attracted a couple of thousand runners on the day. I pointed out that it must be the most hilly course you could devise, and that runners wanting to achieve a time would do much better to enter the Harry Hawkes 10 on June 24, which is pancake flat. And also considerably cheaper to enter!
Tuesday I could have gone to Thames Ditton for the TD Stragglers meeting, which was a pyramid session. But it was a really nice Sunny afternoon and I decided to finish work early and go down to Trowlock Island to check out the recently purchased boat. Sometimes you just have to take advantage of the summer weather! Spent several very pleasant hours doing minor maintenance and tidying up before cycling home just before dark.
Wednesday I felt slightly guilty as I remembered that I was helping with marking and marshaling over next weekend at the GBR event, and would not get to run. Perhaps I should have gone for a run last night? I needn’t have worried. A phone call from Malcolm Davies at the Stragglers led to a quick change of plan. Various runners had dropped out of the Stragglers teams due to injury. Could I step in and run a couple of legs? The upshot is that the weekend now looks super busy and with a daunting running schedule. On Saturday I have leg 9 from Dobbs Weir to High Beech which is in Epping Forest, then on Sunday leg 15 from Lullingstone Park to Tatsfield. The Saturday leg is a reasonably hard 10.2 miles while the Sunday run is an awesome 13.3 miles graded extremely hard. You will doubtless here more of this later. Got to admit, I’m starting to feel nervous!
This Running Life 