MY FAT CHANCE

I Love Wednesdays

As you may or may not know, me and Shameek started our own running crew in Hackney Wick on Wednesdays. RDCY Hackney.

There’s been ups and downs but I know that I want to make it work and continue to see and run with my friends every Wednesday. For the last couple of months I’ve had really bad days on Wednesdays but when the clock strikes 6 it all starts to get better. The anticipation grows and I can’t wait to lace up with my crew.

We’re small, there’s about 6 regulars including myself and Shameek but so much quality there. Lemara and Ounie (above) took to the crew in the best possible way and keep it going now. They’ve never let me down! It’s with people like this that the foundation for an empire are made from.

Charlie Dark, founder of Run Dem Crew often reminisce of the early days of his crew, where him and 6 friends would meet in his kitchen and then run a small loop of Victoria Park. I now know what those memories are like too. I experience it every Wednesday when we’re all chatting pre-run in my living room.

We’re only just getting started, I can’t wait to see what the year has in store for us.

Cheetah Dem Crew

Image credited to DaddyDark

Last week I talked about my long awaited return to Run Dem Crew in the Baby Cheetah group, fast forward a week with more running, smiles and Body Check’s galore I decided to see if I could step it up to Cheetahs again.

Before I stepped out of 1948 after counting our 145 strong crew I’ll admit that I was nervous. All of other groups were still around, baby cheetahs, greyhounds and more. I still had time to back out. I was afraid. Afraid of letting the group down, not being able to keep up and not having my oyster card to get back to HQ if I really couldn’t go on. I didn’t want to do that at all.

The other groups slowly started to disperse in search of Big Ben and suddenly I was left with the Cheetah group only. No pressure, then. Whenever we start a run I try and make myself smile, open with a joke like ‘oh why have I done this’ and so on. It eases my mind at least. We set off down Bateman’s row and I immediately felt the faster pace. Tonight was a sub 8 minute night.

I had to keep my mouth shut and get on with it. When I was lighter and fitter I used to be able to fly through at the front of the pack but now I accepted that those days lay in the future for me and I have to accept that right now, it will be hard to run. I couldn’t summon the vocal energy to shout ‘BOLLARD’ or dish out directions either, there were others that could take care of that tonight, I just had to run with my crew and not let them down.

The route was all kinds of crazy, we were supposed to get to Big Ben via Farringdon, lets just say that we went on our own journey to Covent Garden instead and headed back before it got too late! After the first few miles at roughly 07:40 pace I was feeling it. Savouring each traffic light and stop that the crew was haulted by. Welcome rests for my body to recuperate, I really regretted forgetting my Lucozade in the car! Charlie asked me if I wanted us to split up and I said no, I thought that the gap between the front and back wasn’t too big yet so we were good.

We stuck together and I kept on chugging along with the hope of being finished soon. The run taught me a lot. It reminded me why I run. It challenged me and showed me yet again that if you don’t put the work in you will never receive the plethora of benefits available to you. It’s the same for life. You have to put hard work in now for what you want, otherwise you will never reach it. So I kept on pushing on because I know that one day (…in May…around the time of the Copenhagen Marathon… shhh!) I want to really be working towards being the best I can be. Best physical shape, mental shape, everything. If I want to be anywhere near that sort of level I need to use the experiences I have had in running so far, runs like Tuesday just gone to get me to where I need to be.

I will do it because that it was I want and I will work hard for it.

Before I knew it we were well on our way back to 1948 and on Batemans row yet again, sprinting to the finish line. Thank you Cheetahs for getting me through that run and Charlie for the constant words of encouragement along the way.

Final Mo-Running Prep!

Meet Time: 08:30

Race start time: 10:00

Area: Greenwich

Train Station: Blackheath, Cutty Sark

Nathaniel - 492, Lemara - 151, Ounie - 44

I can meet people at Blackheath or Cutty Sark so ask me on twitter where is best! See you in the morning!

Remember that there’s not not much bag storage so try and travel lightly and maybe wrap your bag up as it may rain!

My Return to Run Dem Crew

image credited to Run Dem Crew

I haven’t been to RDC for a month. I am a RDC Younger and have gone every Tuesday since last year June but because of holidays and other things I haven’t been able to see my running family. It’s a very odd feeling that’s never happened before and if you look at my nike+ history you’ll see that I run mostly on a Tuesday evening.

I was back and I was ready. I wasn’t scared or worried about my speed like before I just said, “I am going to go to Run Dem Crew and enjoy myself then see what happens”.

I went into Baby Cheetahs because Cheetahs has been way too hard for me lately. I just wanted my runners high and I did get that in Baby Cheetahs. I’m not ready for Cheetahs yet. I’m 14 stone, extremely far from my peak but I feel like I can run again which is important.

I like running again. I am happy again. There were about 140 in the house on Tuesday, it’s really nice to have new people down. Once the season locks off there will be 140 people seeing each other for 3 whole months and that is a great thing.

We put our hands up for baby cheetahs and I managed to miss who was leading our group. We were heading to the Emirates stadium, after the weekends results and me opening my mouth on twitter I guess that was the only place to go. I hate running to the  Emirates for 2 reasons.

1. I support Chelsea
2. I support CHELSEA!

2 very good reasons to not want to go there. We set off together and once I checked the pace that we had to go I just set out to try and help out with the group, make sure people were ok, especially at the back. Once we got to the mini wembley half-way point everyone was warm and really ready to go. We stuck together and really ran as a pack, footfall together. We were like a school of fish on the concrete. We were in the zone.

The guys at the front seemed so comfortable, I told them to go into Cheetahs next week. When you hit your stride it’s weird, you can talk and run hard but relax at the same time, all in one motion. I talked to them about the races that I have done this year and it was very interesting to talk to people who are new to Run Dem. People who aren’t quite sure about everything (yet) it’s great to build those early relationships and who knows, I may be working with them sooner or later.

After RDC I moved straight on to my crew RDCY Hackney which you can read about here.