Bluewater Sweatshop Running Community

Bluewater's Sweatshop running community meet on two occasions per week. Both runs take place on the pavement areas in and around Bluewater shopping centre. For the evening runs you can meet in-store between 7pm and 7.15pm and walk down to the start area with the staff or when you know where the start area is, you can go straight there.

Monday at 7.30pm

The Monday evening session is when they run intervals.

The first week I went to this session we ran on a 300 metre loop of one of the lakes/ponds. Each runner had a partner of a similar ability and took it turns to run the loop with the rest period being the time it took for your partner to complete the loop. For me and my partner it worked out at about 1 min run / 1 min rest. We did this for about 25 minutes and in that time me and my partner ran the 300 metre loop 11 times each.

They don't always stick to the same format. Sometimes the session takes place on one of the access roads, which is quite a steep hill. The session I did had us running up to a certain point, resting, then running again, resting, running, resting, then back down to the bottom to do it all over again. I really liked this session.

Also, I'd add that if you want to get properly warmed up before the interval session then do it before 7.30pm because that's when the intervals themselves start.


Wednesday at 7.30pm

The Wednesday evening session is suitable for all levels of runner from beginner through advanced. I have run with this group once. They have a few variations on the route, I'll add the links to the gps files below;

The Hospital Route (approx 4.7km) -  The Hospital Route.
The Beefs 'n' Babes Route (approx 4.7km) - The Beefs 'n' Babes Route

It's worth noting that once the runners have assembled, walked up the access road/hill (Cliff Reach) to the start point and started running it may well be getting on for 7.45pm.


Saturday at 8am (4km time trial )

The store also do a Saturday morning 4km time trial.. I haven't run at this one, and with Saturday being parkrun day it may prove difficult to do so. Times are posted on their facebook page.


Sunday (time tbc)

I haven't been to this session yet, but will write about it once I have. It is a new addition to the Bluewater SRC running schedule.