I have been in a few training groups over the years and although all very different some how you have the same old traits within them. So for example you will have the core, the ones who turn up week in, week out and that core could be the slower runners, the average or the good but it's always there and doing whatever the group want's to do....the nucleus. Then you have the drifters, these are the ones who go through phases throughout the year where one month they will be there and excited about all things running only to lose the motivation as soon as things don't quite go right or something else comes along. The last out of the 3 main groups is the hardened pro's (again this can be any speed of runner), ok they might not be at every single session but they have a plan and that group session is part of it and it's about getting faster.

Sunnier times in the track season

You also have sub plots within those three main pods, you will have idiots...funny ones...tough ones...depressing ones, even little cliques, which some people think are bad but I just think it's natural to get on with some more than others. In short it is basically like your average office at work!

 The current group I am with works very well and has all of the above along with different types of runner. We work quite well as a group when it comes to doing something big and all helping each get through it taking turns on the front of the train, fitting sessions around others i.e. if I am doing 1200m reps they will do K reps but take extra 30s recovery so I can do the K with them.

Over the years there have been some arguments too, I can be quite grumpy and demanding at sessions (bit like Craig Bellamy) and have often been in the middle of them but I am not the only one. I remember it kicking off at Cardiff once which was nothing to do with me! There was a planned session of 8x1k I think and one person was insistent that everyone had to do 8x1k if they started (which I still think is weird), after 5 or 6 of them one of the runners who was returning from injury decided that was enough for one night but the 'boss' wasn't happy about that for whatever reason in his head and it just escalated.

I have had many more moments that we funny though and still make me laugh, only the other day Lewys gave me a piggy back through a stream or a couple of weekends ago about 8 of us were running down this path and a women started screaming at us as she went past on the bike to which all of us said the exact same thing at the exact same time (you can probably guess) which creased me up and I struggled to get to the end of the rep. Most of the time it is me and Lewys talking rubbish at the back of the group on warm up and cool downs but it's things like that which can get you through an 18k session. Tuesday wasn't massive or really hard (5x1200m and then 9x400m) but at the risk of talking outside of the group there was actual dancing going on in between the reps....no names though!

So get out there and find a good one!

 simx