Havering ’90 Joggers Update

Last weekend would have been Havering ’90 Joggers 30th Anniversary Dinner and Dance, to celebrate the long history of the Club in Hornchurch.  We had also planned a number of other events for this year to celebrate but like everyone else, the coronavirus has meant we have had to cancel or postpone our summer plans.

As no official club activities can be carried out our members took it upon themselves to organise socially distanced activities, to celebrate the anniversary of the Club. Members Melanie Green and Gary Flint organised, envisioned and created an amazing collage of Strava art spelling out “Havering ’90 Joggers 30th Anniversary July 2020” by 42 members running each of the characters and plotting them on a map.  Members also took selfies to add to the art.  The group photo was pre Lockdown.

Chris Thomas, Clubs chairperson, said “Lockdown is no match for the camaraderie and family spirit at H90J!”

Members also organised other lockdown safe activities such as a solo running relay with a social distance selfie from one members house to the next, covering the whole borough with some trips into neighbouring boroughs. Our members also each ran up the Forestry Commissions Ingrebourne Hill over the space of a week to take a solo selfie by the rock haystack, member Jenette Ogborn merged them into one collage.  Each Saturday member Bruce Knowles arranges a Virtual parkrun until parkrun is restarted nationally with helpers from our members to collate the results.  Well done to Kate Pettit and Barry Smith for being the fastest this week, and Debbie Jones and Bruce mail for climbing the most in your 5km runs and all 41 members for still getting up and running on a Saturday Morning.

Continual running coaching has also continued with weekly challenges to be carried out remotely, from running cadence, intervals and improving members’ mental health through this lockdown.

Apart but together.