Lockdown fever is rampant once again in Meet & Train! Run the Block is just over, with the proud winners announced before Christmas (congrats to Legs 11), and now the thrill-seekers have decided that January's Level 5 Lockdown is the perfect time for another competition!
Run the Block was a major competition in November and December 2020 with twelve teams of four vying for points in a number of challenges such as:
Agreeing weekly target mileage for teams and hitting that target spot on - not one mile more or fewer.
Posting a motivating song or poem or video or meme.
Producing a weekly Spotify playlist related (somehow!) to running
Sharing improvement targets
Drawing pictures using their GPS watch as the paintbrush in the hand (OK, on the wrist!)
Inviting a household member out to run with you
And more...
The Competition engaged the creative juices of many of the Meet & Train's finest. New skills were unearthed. From dressing up in costumes, to compiling dance moves with team members having recorded their pieces separately.
We won't forget Stephen jumping out of bed in his pink dressing gown to the riffs of The
Rolling Stones' Start Me Up or Sarah O'Carroll teaching Fintan Hourihan perspective ("things in the distance are small..") or Clare McGovern's Riverdance performance or indeed Joyce Tracey's bag of McDonalds' chips drawn by running up and down (for each chip!) outside McDonalds in Nutgrove with her Garmin recording every step (I wonder what people thought as they wolfed down their gherkin-laced burgers).
That was 2020.
Now is 2021.
With Level 5 Lockdown back with us, the Meet & Train folks cannot train as a group, so the intrepid gang of Stephen Judge, Romaine King, Sarah O’Carroll and John Sloan have organised the Set your Marks 2021 Challenge to ensure we burn off the Christmas pudding and don't slob too much on the couch to watch Netflix!
They have organised time trials for Meet & Train to be held between January and March: for the One Miler, the 5K and then the 10K. This spring training will have everyone in Usain Bolt mode, ready for the summer races - that is if Stephen Donnelly can get the vaccines out on time for us. Let's hope he does. Let's hope we can run the Dunshaughlin 10K; I miss the sandwiches.
The organisers are cooking up something exciting! Get the runners laced up...
