Squatting Highes with Turning Tides

With Julia being so organised I had very little to do to cover this week's group run; hope Julia and Nick had a great holiday!

Thank you Worthing Goodgymers for the warm welcome, it was great to meet you all and catch up with some familiar faces.

News for the Worthing Goodgymers this week:

Many congratulations to Lucy who completed her first half marathon on Sunday at Hampton Court! Thank you for coming to the group run despite being a little stiff after your race.

Congratulations this week also goes to John who did his 100th Parkrun on Saturday! That's 500 kilometres! Maybe time to treat yourself to a new pair of trainers...?

We made our way to St. Clare's Community Hub, a day centre which is part of the Turning Tides group; a community led homelessness organisation. The centre provides a cooked breakfast, showers, washing facilities and advice for homeless people or people in temporary or insecure accommodation. We were met by Emily who explained to us all the great work they do at the centre and set out the tasks she had in store for us.

Lucy and Paul made sandwiches so that those visiting the day centre the next day would be guaranteed something to eat once the centre closed. Jay, Belinda and Anne unwrapped some Christmas presents that had been previously wrapped by Goodgym, so they could be made into care packages for the service users. Gill and Emily sorted out the clothing cupboard making sure everything was folded nicely and sorted into tops, bottoms, socks and ties.

Ros stocked up the toiletries and tinned goodies that visitors to the centre can help themselves to and some cleaning to make the place look lovely. John and Dunacn were folding clean laundry and finished so quickly they helped with the sandwich making and present unwrapping!

All done and cleaned up there was time for a quick photo before heading out to the seafront for a fitness session.

With St. Clare's being so close to our start point I thought it was only right we got some running in! We concentrated on strengthen exercises to help with power in our running should someone try to over take us at the end of a race! To strengthen our legs we did squats, piston squats, lunges and single foot taps, and for our arms, tridips and push-ups. Completing 10 of each exercise and a shuttle run in between each, some of us managed over 4km despite being less than 1km away from our start point!

With a few opting to fit in another km to their over all distance, the rest of us slowly jogged back to Splahpoint to stretch ourselves out including a group half lotus (you had to be there). Thank you again for having me Worthing, hopefully you won't be cursing me too much when you feel the after effects of all those squats and lunges! Should you fancy being a Goodgym tourist, please come and visit us in Brighton on Tuesdays!