Interesting Sweatshop offer - running community

Before I get into today's topic - a brief training update:

Last week ended up a little different than I planned but the volume was close to target. Wednesday was a big training day with a 2 hour cycle (commute) followed by a tough 1:30 swim session. Thursday and Friday were busy days at work so training unfortunately had to take a back seat (i.e. rest days!). Saturday morning was another Club swim and then the afternoon found me back on the bike with my old Ironman training partner Chris for a 1:30 bike session. As published on my previous IM blog (http://journeytoironmanaustria.blogspot.co.uk) Chris suffered some serious problems during the big event and ended up in hospital for a week. On returning home he took approx. 8 weeks off resting (i.e. not training) and getting checked out by a number of medical specialists. Despite this long spell out of the sport I was pleasantly surprised how 'bike fit' and strong he was. We agreed on a rolling course with a killer hill (Steyning Bostal) and Chris pushed the pace from the start - averaging 35km/h on the flat and attacking the hill climb like a man possessed - welcome back Chris!

The Club Aquathon race was cancelled so my week finished with an easy 1 hour run trying out the Digifit application and ANT+ adaptor for my iPhone - unfortunately not the best experience - thank goodness for my trusty Garmin.

Yesterday was a double run session - the morning was a 40min push-run set: a circuit around Preston park stopping to complete 5x exercises every 3-5 mins following a 10min warm up.

The evening was a little different and brings me to the main reason for my blog - the Sweatshop Running Community. Upon passing their Brighton store I noticed they were advertising free weekly runs for the local community. I registered online and was surprised at the level of benefits for a free resource:

1st week - free bottle of Lucozade
5 weeks - free adidas Sweatshop Running Community technical t-shirt
25 weeks - free lucozade nutrition pack
30 weeks - free Sweatshop lifestyle t-shirt
50 weeks - free Garmin Forerunner 610 (worth £329.99) - wow!

I understand that you are supposed to complete the above in a 52 week period and despite having sessions on both Monday and Wednesday are only allowed to record one stamp a week. So it may be a challenge to record 50 stamps in a year but a very nice reward if you can make it.

The session was managed by Sweatshop staff and a qualified running leader and consisted of a brief warm up and a timed 5km run along Brighton seafront. The wind was pretty severe in one direction, which raised the heart rate high early in the run, although was easier on the return. I went with the 2nd group and faster runners with a sub 25 min target. 2 athletes shot off and were well out of my league. I did quite well and recorded a 21:31 time (similar to my recent timed 5km run, although on that occasion with little wind). All in all a good session and a nice group of runners to train with. I expect I will join them again although the Monday and Wednesday session overlap with my Tri Club's swimming sessions so unlikely it is something I will be able to commit to each week - shame, I would have liked that watch!

Details of Sweatshop Running Community can be found via the following link:

http://www.sweatshop.co.uk/community.cfm