On the run coaching & children cleaning up our park

Today, I ran in daylight. Hahahaha. I'm really getting into my night running. Last night I only headed out after 19h00.

I just ran my local loop -  a quick six kilometres - before heading off for our Adventure Racing Club evening (which was AWESOME - talking about Expedition Africa - great crowd, super stories from the speakers and fond memories).

I get to my local park and see a woman in front of me who I saw out running some time last week. I remembered her because I'd commented about her outfit, which was beautifully colour coordinated - shoes and top. "Quite coincidental," she'd told me.

I had to wait to cross the road so I had a fun chase to catch her. I ran with her for a bit and while we were running she said that she was new to running - only been at it - irregularly - for about two months. She's battling with getting stitches and also a bit of an Achilles niggle. She returned her first pair of running shoes and is on a second pair.

I gave her some advice on posture and not criss-crossing her arms across her body when she runs - something that is very commonplace. I think that this is what causes stitches because your wiggling your upper body left and right and 'twisting' your intestines. She was surprised because within a minute her stitch had gone. I also gave her some pointers on other form elements and she seemed to have more bounce in her step. I ran another loop around the park with her before heading off on my own route again. We exchanged names. She lives near the park and I've seen her children out-and-about on their bicycles.

This is the thing with running. We go to coaches for paddling, tennis and golf... but we just hit the road in our running shoes and hope for the best. Instead of learning how to run, we just do it. Good form does not come naturally to everyone.

Before we parted ways, I saw some cars and children at the one end of the park. This is unusual. And then I saw that these wonderful children were picking up litter. Our park has this problem - like others - where people get bags of trash out of bins and they sit on the grass spilling it everywhere and then they leave it all lying there. Constant problem! Well, these children had been assembled and were doing a clean-up. Just fabulous!

One of the moms there recognised me before I saw her... we were in Standard 6 and 7 together. We bumped into each other a few years ago when her husband came on one of my navigation courses and then two years ago I taught her to crochet as my 67 minutes thing.

This was my Day 16 run. A good one.

P.S. This is my 800th blog post!