Hello Everyone,

We are sorry to have missed you last week but heard from Jane and Bonnie that you did a great job.  We are looking forward to running with you this coming Thursday, September 25!   

For the benefit of those who did not run with the group last week and for the new additions to our group, we will recap a bit.  We will be following a walk/jog schedule that will keep building up over the next few weeks, following a program that is designed to have us ready for the half marathon in the spring.  You are all welcome in the group, regardless of whether you plan to run the half marathon or not.  Some of you may not even want to run long distances but simply want to learn how to run, and that is fine too.  It may seem far-fetched to you at this point that you could possibly run a half marathon in April, but believe us, if you stick to the program, and continue to run on Tuesdays and Thursdays (and eventually add a third run) you will be able to do it.  

Now that we are running slightly longer intervals, you might be interested in buying running shoes.  At Runners Need (which has several locations around London), they will watch you run on a treadmill and assess your running style and recommend shoes based on that.  A pair of running shoes will last you roughly 400 miles so it would be a good idea to write the date of purchase down (maybe on the inside of the shoe).  In general it is recommended that you go up one half to one size in running shoes, as feet tend to swell when running.  Also, we will be running rain or shine so you will need a good rain jacket.

For the first few weeks, we will be staying local and running a loop back to St John’s Wood.  Starting sometime in mid October, we will start to mix it up, running some loops and some destination runs.  For these runs you will need to carry an Oyster card.  We will let you know when we will be doing that.

That is all for now.  We will see you all on Thursday!  Please let us know if you have any questions.

 Meg and Vicky