Dark nights are clothing in (a Great North Pun)

9 of our group completed the Great North Run yesterday and brought along their tired legs to prove it!

The strap line of this year's Great North Run was #BeYourGreatest and great is what we were tonight. If you've never done a half marathon, it's hard to describe what your legs feel like the next day. If you imagine every part of your body hurting, then inserting bricks into your quads, calfs and sewing your skin back up with rusty nails you'd be about half way there. There were some great (pardon the pun) achievements in our group yesterday and I promise I will only say "never again" again for the next three months before I get over it. The iconic 13.1 mile stretch from city to seaside shows off what is amazing about our region and I'm so proud that we had such a presence there yesterday both as runners and all=important support crew.

But on to tonight!

After a warm up of some gentle mobility drills and a catch up from me about how to survive a half marathon when you probably should have got in an ambulance, we trotted up to Smart Works for our second visit. Smart Works is an amazing charity in our city that provides clothing, coaching and support to women returning to work. This wonderful project has already helped 35 women to gain paid employment or a year-long apprenticeships, despite only starting in April! Although Smart Works HQ is up four flights of stairs it's one our our favourite tasks, as there are plenty of jobs to get stuck into.

Jobs tonight included sorting out clothing donations, dressing mannequins, organising displays, tying together coat hangers, putting clothes into sizes and occasionally trying things on for a laugh

With the exception of the mannequins falling over a lot, we flew through the tasks, even creating an impressive human chain as we delivered the massive donation bags to the store room! Job done and two very happy task owners.

Epic!

The park outside played host to the fitness session and to some slow, fast and hobbling running as well as the numbers game in which the 9 GNR finishers showed how hard it is to do squats, lunges and well anything, the day after a half marathon with a massive downhill bit at the end. Top encouragement from Dan in cheerleading mode as always- although I would have preferred it if he'd kept the pink scarf on that he'd been modelling inside!

Thanks to everyone for coming along on a drizzly evening, the first dark run back in Toon and for cheering me up massively. Hope you all have the best week now that you've started it in the best way. Happy running!

Anji x