I'll be there for U (and V, W, X, Y, Z)

TWO new legends tonight showing Geordie runners are not fair weather runners because it was our most character-building Group Run yet. Welcome to the fantastic Faye and Ross who joined us for the first time tonight.

We jumped from Summer to Autumn in the blink of an eye today so numbers were down for our trip to do some litter picking at Exhibition Park, the huge green space alongside the Town Moor that is home to Newcastle parkrun.

After our weekly catch up we headed out for a few paired warm up games in the rain giving us the gift of ROSS being teamed with RACHEL "OMG WE WERE ON A BREAK" and many other Friends references ensued as well as the automatic conversation topic (best Friends episode) and Run Report pun (hello!) handed to me on a plate. In case you're wondering, the one where they learn to play poker in series one was definitely the best. A short trot to Claremont Road to collect the litter pickers from Peter and away we went.

With a smaller group tonight I set the alphabet challenge again where we have to try to collect an item starting with every letter of the alphabet. Many treats awaited us including dummies (D) jewellery (J) spade (S) and underwear, or knickers, or Y-fronts (U, K and Y depending on what you call them) and we managed to get almost every letter of the alphabet. There was one thing we all agreed on and that was that we were getting cold (C) and wet (W) so off we trotted to the Town Moor for the fitness session.

It was monthly time trial time!

Once a month we head out to run an exact 1KM section of the Town Moor which is always challenging as it's one of those freakish places that is always windy and occasionally has the added challenge of free range cows, yes, really. The wind was definitely a factor tonight but that didn't stop 8 of the group smashing out some amazing times including PBs for Carol Anne and Ross. Well done, what a start to the week!

Best of luck to everyone taking on the Great North Run and don't forget everyone is welcome at our get together at Brewdog on Sunday for post-GNR drinks from 7:30pm onwards.

See you for next week's group run to Smart Works

Anji x