Practice Run

A depleted Team gathered this morning at Holme Pierrepont for the Easter Sunday practice run.
No longer the bowl of hellfire, the watersports centre was overcast and damp as Vena, Sarah L and Sarah B crossed the start line and 58 minutes later crossed it again, knocking a full seven minutes off last year's Race for Life time.
The drab weather and missing team members did nothing to dampen spirits though and motivational talk covered last night's Dizzee / Prodigy rave; Manchester apartments and TT; the weirdness of boys and individual race training plans and progress. Oh, and shoes, obviously!
So the time may not have been world record breaking but at this point in our training and after raving for a full three hours (in this style - see from 1'43" for our dance inspiration) not long before we were pretty pleased with ourselves. We feel sure we can knock more minutes off when race day does appear on 26 July.
One thing which will surely spur us on to speediness is more sponsorship. Please use the links over in the side panel to support a fat girl - Sarah B; Vena; Sarah L; Lauren; Toni-Anne; Ace; Sarah H or Kelly. Every person which sponsors us is entitled to wear the badge of honour, which is, in fact, a Fat Girl badge.
We'll probably head over to Holme Pierrepont again at the start of June to have another practice run. If not, next on the Fat Girl calendar is 'tactical' training on 23 May and then Katie's Midnight Walk on 20 June.
'til then - keep running.
S-CP x

Team meet

The first 'tactical' training session of Team Run, Fat Girl, Run has been held for 2009.
I'd love to say we talked tactics and got a plan underway but in reality we had fun with the badges, relived last year's stagger around the Bowl of Hellfire, and then got down to the serious business of pulling shapes. All while wearing fantastic, beautiful shoes - which hopefully has helped to tone our leg muscles.
We blessed the, er, Bless with our hospitality but after losing out to Noel Edmonds on the quiz machine headed off to Mosh to pull some shapes. And what shapes they were! Some frankly stunning synchronized dance routines reminiscent of The Supremes (but with better shoes and adorned with Fat Girl badges) stunned the other punters.
I'm convinced that the effort it takes to perform such a technically demanding creative flow of dance moves counts as training, especially when heel height is taken into account.
Unfortunately, the effort was detrimental to some as early doors were called for the team when Sarah B's back problems of last year threatened a painful reoccurrence.
Thanks must be given to the Street Pastors who complimented our footwear before fulfilling the role of team support with the handing out of free flip flops; much needed by the team at this point.
A few pictures are available in the Facebook Fat Girl group so get over there and check them out. Hopefully a few more will be added in the next few days.
And so with Lauren strutting away to home Fat Girl Cabs (as driven by Sarah C-P) called through the all-night Maccy D's and delivered fat girl's back to their beds. Excellent meeting and we can't wait for the inevitable frolics to be had when all eight of us manage to get together in one place!

Which brings us nicely to a quick round-up of team members:

• Sarah C-P is 10lbs down and has had a couple of week's off training but made a return with Body Pump today - whatever wasn't hurting from dancing in six inch stilettos last night is definitely feeling the burn now;
  
• Sarah Barker was making excellent progress with her running but will now be resting her back for a few days / weeks / hopefully not long;
• Lauren is still battling the treadmill for superiority, and starting to win;
• Vena plans to begin training on 1 April and is spreading the sponsorship word;
• Sarah H was training hard but now will be limited by a foot injury;
• Ace is showing dedication to the cause with plenty of training in Londinium and living healthy too;
• Toni is in training and hoping the foot pain of last year stays in the past;
• Last but not least is Kelly, currently at SXSW in Texas most recently understood to have had a chat with Graham Coxon about Sarah C-P wanting to kidnap him. Sorry about that Graham.
  

See the pain that we go through - the least you can do is donate a few pennies :-) I am sure both injured Sarah's would welcome the healing power that comes from people sponsoring us (see side panel for links to online sponsorship sites).

In other news:

• Badges (not badgers - there has been some confusion) have arrived and will be passed out / sent to all those who have sponsored us so far. Please model your badge in a way you feel is a fitting tribute to the team and post pic to the Facebook group - there may even be a small token of recognition for the one that pleases / shocks us the most! Big thanks to Badges for Bands for making our buttons a reality.
• The total raised by the band so far stands at £149. A Blue Peter-style totaliser is over in the side panel for your pleasure.
  

Next team meets are a practice run around Holme Pierrepont over the Easter weekend and a 'tactical' meeting in May, possibly at St Pancras Champagne Bar (if V gets us all on the train for cheap!) or Derby / Notts way.
For now...keep runnin'
S C-P (hoping that injuries to Fat Girls called Sarah don't come in threes)
xxx