BRAT club

No, its not a club for annoying adolescents - its Birmingham Running and Triathlon Club

And after five weeks of training on my own I thought I would give it a go.

I joined them on one of their 'gentler' sessions at Birmingham University - and boy was it tough.
We did a 10 minute jog to warm up followed by some interval training that saw us running at a 5km race-pace for a short distance.
We then slowed down for a short distance before doing fast laps of the small lake (or rather pond)with some short one/two min rest periods slotted in.
In total, including warm up and cool down, the whole thing last about an hour.

Many of the runners are extremely good and compete at a high level.
However, if you are a beginner like me, and would like to do some social running, then Brat club is also ideal as the coaches and runners are all very friendly.

I hope to go again next week. But I'll see how I do in my first ever 10km race in Tenbury on Sunday.
More on that later.