On the sweatiest of summer nights, 10 runners assembled to flyer for the Salvation Army running 8.5km.

The joy of summer meant that this Wednesday night was pretty muggy but very pretty. We assembled at our usual place with the scent of roasted coffee.

feeling pretty roasted ourselves

The hill to the Salvation Army is a sneaky one that doesn't look so bad but we all made it up despite being pretty sweat-laden. The lovely Janet met us with a very welcome jug of squash and told us about the event we were flyering for. On Saturday 10th September, it's the 135th birthday of the Camberwell Salvation Army and there is a family party for the community to enjoy. So we split off into teams after a briefing for flyering and being safe whilst out and about in Camberwell.

We came across lots of blocks of flats, higgle-di-piggledy staircases and some friendly locals wanting to know about the event.

After we delivered the majority of the leaflets, we utilised the car park at the Salvation Army to play the famous GoodGym Islington game

Cups and Cones

For those not familiar, this involves cups and two teams named cups and cones respectively. Cups upside down are cones. The winner after a set amount of time of turning cups/cones around and around are those with the most of their namesake. Some dubious tactics of attempted hidings and a lot of chasing and time was up.

Congratulations to team cone! The battle is won but the war has just begun.

We still had a hill to conquer for the journey home so to push each other through, we Indian filed up it at jogging pace with the back person sprinting up to the front. The hill was soon over. An amble home including a 60s plank and we just about beat the black clouds and looming thunder shower.

Superb effort on a very hot night from everyone.

Fingers crossed for no rain during the bbq at Grove Park next Wednesday. See you there!

Three lovely runners came out to Camden to experience Goodgym for the first time and learn some good running habits.

Running 101

This week's focus was going to be on speed work, but was adapted to introduce the group to running best practice:

Backwards arm drive

• keeping them at a right angles (imagine carrying a walnut in the crook of your arm)
• driving them backwards
• socket to pocket
• don't cross your body with your arms

Posture

• imagining a helium balloon keeping your head and torso up tall

Legs

Using drills to build in the muscle memory:

• skips - back leg drive
• bum kicks - quick feet & lower leg movement
• high knees - reinforce knee lift

Core blimey

We finished the session in Primrose Hill with some cross-training exercises - these strengthen your core muscles, which help keep your body aligned as you run.

Bingo

As is now Polly's tradition we finished with a warm down in front of the bingo hall.

That's all folks

Thanks for coming along Pip, Matt and Corinne. That completes Polly's 'Back to Basics' sessions. Cheers to everyone that has come out and shooed chickens in Camden. Good luck with your running.

PSB