With a large number of runners doing the Alresford and Eastleigh 10kms I decided that it would probably be wise to do a simple social run rather than trying to smash out a tough session! To keep the variation in the sessions I decided to trial a new route that I had recently stumbled across. We met at Garnier Road car park and welcomed Wendy Holman to her first Thursday night session and Tina Jury and Alice Smith to their first ever Fit Club session! Welcome to the group!! We also saw a record attendance with 25 runners at the session. We keep continuing to grow and it is fantastic to see!!
After a chat, a warm up and a celebration of the achievements of Mike and Anne at Endure 24 we headed off for the run.
The route was similar to the start of last week. we ran down the path next to the river to the back of St Catherine's. Here we went through the gate and followed the path up the valley behind the hill. Well most of us did....Adam decided that he would sprint up the steps and join us further up the hill. Madness.At the top of the hill we went through the gate and across the M3 bridge. Here we turned right and took the right fork the hill onto the grassy meadow overlooking the M3 and St Catherine's. It was here we did our obligatory group jumping shot and took a bit of a rest after roughly a mile of uphill! We had reached the high point of the run so the rest was down hill and flat, much to the relief of the group.
We headed through a gate and into a corn field where the footpath continued through the waving green corn and down to a stile. It was here that we headed into the golf course section of the run.The course headed down a hill, round a green and across the fairway. The footpath then continued down the centre of the golf course until we reached the mahoosive down hill stretch. After an extended bit of trail we found ourselves down at the club house.
We left the golf course and crossed the roads around the Hockley Interchange. We trotted up the hill and round onto the far end of the viaduct. Here a group of the runners decided to do a sprint the length of the bridge whilst the rest of us took it at a more leisurely pace.The last stretch back along the river was taken at a nice gentle pace all the way back to the car park. Here we cooled down and headed our separate ways.
The route was just under 4 miles and a great mix of trail and road running as well as a good mix of uphill, downhill and flat. It's also a really pretty run!! I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a new route and a new challenge. Next week will be back to the intervals! Venue TBC!
Best of luck to everyone running the Eastleigh and Alresford 10k's this weekend as well as Simon running the adidas London 1 hour run.
Until next week, happy running everyone!!
Coach James
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