Silent night, holey night

11 runners travelled 2 km following a fickle star that lead them back to the starting point, to help the Friends of Tottenham Green.

We started the evening with a bit of discussion on the exact route we should take to Tottenham Green, given that it's about 100m from the starting point, this was surprisingly complicated. I arrived with a plan of a simple run around the block. Sarah suggested throwing in an additional loop round an urban gyratory to make the GPS track prettier. Runs traces can be art apparently. I still wasn't convinced until Sarah and Rachel was pointed out that it would look a bit like Dalek. Done, loop added!

Feeling quite cold, we kept the warm up short, and dashed off around the block. Quite fast for the first kilometer, and then slower as we avoided all the pedestrians on the main road.

At Tottenham Green, our mission was to clear a bed from the autumn leaves, aerate the soil, and get it ready for spring.

• Firstly gently raking the leaves off to one side.
• More forcefully pushing the anti-weed bark to the other side.
• Breaking up the soil with forks.
• Burying the leaves in holes.
• Putting the bark back.

We even managed to sneak in a quick litter pick before it was time to bring the tools back into the lock up, and head back.

Once we'd finished our arduous 300 meter run, we did a fitness session on Maximum Velocity Running Technique. Building up from walking with good posture, to focus on relaxed shoulders, socket-to-pocket arms, high knees, and putting it all together for a solid sprinting form. Lots of videos at that link if you want to see the techniques in detail again.

To finish off, those all important stretches. With a dynamic yoga pose ably demonstrated by Hazel, when my tight hamstrings wouldn't let me show it clearly. Keep on stretching peeps!

Then off to dinner which you can read about in: Santa Claus is coming to Chicken Town.

Happy Christmas, and see you next year!