Testing The Water

A beaut of a day yesterday, bright blue skies and warm glowing sunshine powered up the troops for their evening work. A solid 15 of us met in the Aquatics Centre - with a new task laying in front of us. I was excited about the unknown, the route there and our new long-term relationship with Cody Dock and how we could help them in achieving their ambitions.

We had two nice new faces in Chris and Jenny. Hope you enjoyed your first session. You guys fitted in seamlessly - you're made for it.

We did the rounds on all the impressive runs over the last week, I'm struggling to keep up these days! Ramon casually clipped 5minutes off his HM time - 1hr 42mins ain't hanging about. Alice whipped around the manor for a breezy 19miles, aerobic bliss there - great prep for her upcoming marathon. Prakash did his first 10kilomter run! Making terrific strides in progress there. Keep it coming Newham - wonder what awesome runs we'll be talking about next week.

A quick random question hit. " You could have any pet, what would it be?" and "what vegetable would you rid from the planet?" A lot of brussels sprout haters out there, I saw that coming though. More surprising was Jade and Brad's disdain for mushrooms, the group met this with a harmonic gasp. Turns out bitter gourd is Karela, an Indian vegetable I quite like (my girlfriend informed me of this when I got home). With that in mind I should've have defended the helpless veg. Regarding pets, we went from those freaky sphynx cats, to badgers, elephants, giraffes...and the most outrageous - a dog!

Just over 2miles to Cody Dock, a nice enough route on the way ..better with headtorches down the Greenway. Rosie encountered shin splints ..but managed to stretch it out and then crack on. Need to spend an extra 5mins warming up lower leg Rosie.

Once we arrived to the dockland area...we had a quick look around. It's quite a magical little place. City in the background, lovely flowers lining the paths, large bridge overhead, a river path leading up to it and habitable boats perched up high and down low. It has it all going on. Would be blimmin' amazing to have a social there. We'll make this happen.

Simon, was our contact man this week. He works for the charity that manages the dockland area. He gave us an elaborate historical breakdown of Newham. With interesting statistics, ornithological info, geographical past and previous famous inhabitants. It was pretty damn impressive. But alas we had work to do.

Watering plants and sweeping. Was a short task this week, but what you guys completed in 25mins normally takes 4 people 2.5hours. Next time we go there we'll be even more efficient, as will know our way about the place, hence get more done.

At roughly 8.10 after some team pics we made our back. Down the canal, this was the route I initially took and what a beautiful one it is. Can't wait to run that again. Flat, quiet and simply awesome.

Cheers for your efforts and another great evening. Until next week

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