February has been another busy month here at Earlswood Running Club, and also challenging in many ways! We have battled some fairly awful weather throughout the month, so we are looking forward to Spring putting in an appearance soon. Here are our February highlights…

During our FIT (fun, inclusive training) sessions, we have covered the following:

• 800m or 1km repeats – a tough session but great for building endurance
• “Hilly pyramids” – uphill efforts of 45s, 60s, 90s, 60s, 45s
• Meet and retreat in pairs – introducing an element of competition as the runners race back to the start

If you’ve not been to a FIT session yet, why not give it a try? You won’t regret it – every Thursday at 7.45pm, meeting at Earlswood Baptist Church.

Our training course for the London Winter Run finished at the start of the month and the runners were all well-prepared and excited for race day. Sadly, due to storm Ciara, the race was cancelled! The race organisers were still prepared to present medals to those who ran their own 10k, so we duly put on a “Medal Run” – this time accompanied by storm Dennis! It was incredibly wet and windy but we did it and the runners should be getting their medals soon. They are very well deserved!

Our Tuesday social runs have once again been very well attended this month, and we even had a special guest one week when we were joined by the Mayor or Reigate and Banstead. We were honoured to have the Mayor run with us in his special Mayoral robes running top – we hope to welcome him back again in the future.

We finished the month with our winter course 1-mile time trial – James King beat his own course record to set a new record of 7:02, which was also equalled by Hayley Grierson. 14 runners (56%) also achieved a course PB. Well done to everyone who took part!

56 different people ran with Earlswood Running Club this month – Stuart was the top attendee, and qualified for a free run along with Natalie, Betsie, Caroline, Heather and Bridget. Great commitment and enthusiasm shown despite everything the Met Office could throw at us.

Our monthly incentive programme continues: run 8 times with us in March and get your next run free.

Happy running,

Kate x