As ever I have not trained enough and will just be happy to complete rather than going for a personal best. I was out running last Sunday morning at the crack of dawn and thinking how fortunate we are to have such interesting and varied areas to run and train in.

From my house in Leigh I can easily get on to the seafront or in to Belfairs woods or over to Hadleigh Castle. This week I even ran the length of the A13 in to Southend and through the High Street to the pier. There were some interesting sights as it was so early....... I think quite a few people were still on their way home from nights out.

I was speaking to a potential vendor the other day and they were a bit down on Leigh. Their personal thoughts were it was too busy and expensive, but as ever, I reprimanded them and was extremely positive about the good points of our town, points that are so easy to take it for granted unless you stop and think sometimes.

Its all very well if you live in London and your 1 bedroom ex-council flat is worth over £1,000,000 but how much else has that sort of area to offer? Together with the short commute for city workers, excellent schools and the Broadway shopping area, there is also the excellent leisure and sporting facilities that if you live in a Metropolis like London, must be a huge attraction for potential buyers or tenants.

You may not even be aware yourself of all of the different clubs and activities that are on offer locally? I am certain that I don’t use all of the facilities and take for granted just how fortunate we are. As mentioned I run a little bit and am a member of Leigh on Sea Striders the local running club that host an annual 10km race through Leigh and hundreds of other events. We obviously have Belfairs golf Course and the various cricket and football clubs at the Belfairs playing fields.

Anybody interested in anything remotely to do with the water is obviously well catered for with lots of sailing clubs, the motor boat club, canoeing, rowing and windsurfing plus the rising popularity of kite surfing which looks far to frightening for me! Even the Redcaps Open Water swimming club which just seems mad, they are made of stronger stuff than me.

There are no excuses for not getting to a gym I’m afraid. Clements Place in the heart of the Broadway is the closest but there are others in Pall Mall and around plus larger ones like Virgin in Thundersley or David Lloyd in Eastwood. All have excellent facilities with things like swimming pools, tennis and various classes. Even our illustrious leader of leigh-on-sea.com, Jo is taking up the baton with some personal training sessions!

Cycling has boomed over the last few years and with the dedicated cycle lane along the length of the sear front plus the recent opening to the public of the Hadleigh olympic mountain bike track we seem to get all types of cyclists from far and wide.

For those of you that are getting out of breath just reading this there are things a little less strenuous. There are lots of fabulous walks through woods, downs and on the seafront and for this of you who think even that is too much there is always the Bridge club.

Quite rightly there is always a lot of focus on the leisure facilities around the Broadway area and these mostly consist of bars and restaurants and these are all fabulous but hopefully now we are getting in to the summer months why noir try and go a bit further afield and seek out a sports club or outdoor activity and really explore our area and take full advantage of all it has to offer.

This article is by Rob Kahl at Scott & Stapleton
Tel: 01702 471155

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