Where there's a Willesden there's a way

100 squats, 40 sit ups, 20 burpees, 9 GoodGymers, 6 laps and 1 bombed task. A number of reasons GG Brent proved that where there's a Willesden there's a way.

On a very windy Monday evening, GG Brent welcomed in February with cheer and excitement. The first of the month brings the joys of track and the team were more than up for the challenge. Not even a last minute (literally last min) pull of the task could get us down, even if if was the last home-ground session for Willesden SC. Luckily the fab manager Jason promised a series of building and fixing tasks to make-up when we ventured back over for visits later in the year.

Unperturbed I decided to take the opportunity to really flex my coaching muscles and see what this gang of red tees could do. We all know endurance runners don't do 2 things enough - cross train and stretch, so by golly we were doing it tonight.

Warm-up started with some group 400m laps, followed by line-runs and kick backs to get the blood flowing and muscles and joints mobilised.

Once the warm-up and stretch were complete, it was back to school for some old fashioned fun, piggy back races!!!! Deceptively difficult and amazing muscle work for quads and hammys. The runs were followed by doubles sit-ups, which the team knocked out in no time at all, these are fit bunch.... fitter than they believe themselves to be! Next up drills, more mobilising ... * Flick kicks * High knees * Lightbulbs * Grapevines * Ladders

Emphasising core engagement and firing up of our major joints and muscles. If we practice drills before every run, overall running technique sees vast improvement, you become more efficient and you increase speed over time. So even though it may seem silly sometimes, stick a few ladder drills, or running to the tock of the metronome into your Saturday run warm-up routine and you will begin to see improvements in times!

After the fun it was down to business, the main section of the session was hard-core to say the least. 400m lap increasing speed gradually followed by 10 burpees and then 50 squats. Despite the headwind, times were impressive and the team cheered each other on through the HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) section too. Round 2 - same again, keeping the lap in the same time spot range of 10seconds, everyone smashed it and then once again knocked out their burpee/suqat HIIT section like heroes.

The importance of taking your body to uncomfortable states, is to prove that you can recover!! Breathe out the panic and before you know it you're ready to go again. Recovery times will begin to reduce the more you do HIITs and in race mode, you'll be the only one powering up that hill and then speeding up at the top!

So after the session it was a quick cool down and stretch, well-deserved and definitely needed, those squats may leave some casualties in their path tomorrow!!

It was a terrific session and awesome to see how far the group has come in the year in residence at Willesden. Now we move onto pastures new - The Queensbury, on Walm Lane, opposite Willesden Green Station. A new home for a new year. But don;t worry Willesden we will be back, to tackle that track again and finally get round to fixing up the tennis courts out back!!

Until next week!

DO GOOD. FEEL GOOD. INSPIRE.