12 runners clear paths and litter for Castle park

Another Wednesday, another really really hot Wednesday! This could only mean another Goodgym Colchester Group run. I wonder what the weather forces will do in December and January to make sure it is unseasonably warm and muggy on Wednesday nights.

Luckily, our task was nearby so we didn’t have too far to run to get started. I nice easy half a kilometre to the ranger’s station in Castle park to find Kenny. It was tough as it was the first part of the parkrun uphill section, but that didn’t detract a bunch of Goodgymers.

We go to the Ranger’s station, but unfortunately, the lights were on, but nobody was home. (Southpark references did come to mind - where was Kenny?).

The lights were on but nobody was home

We decided to run around the park to the gates as we guessed the ranger would be on patrol to close gates and lock up toilets. This meant further up the parkrun hill, all the way to the top in fact, before we found Kenny and Steve locking up some toilets.

Phew

Eventually we were given brooms a plenty, bin liners and a few of our favourites, the litter grabbers, to make the lower park path a bit clearer.

We walked sensibly down to the lower park, and began clearing leaves and picking litter. Our newbies, Aaron, Laura and Paul got stuck in, whilst Tommy true to form, ran on ahead and started making the biggest pile of leaves ever!

Last week we needed the head torches just for the return run. This week, we needed them on the task too. Whilst it wasn’t pitch black, the light was fading fast, especially with the leafy covering overhead.

Another traveling task was completed in no time, and our excited merry bunch made our way back to the Ranger’s station to drop off the bags full of leaves, the brooms and the litter pickers, and we saw a frog!

Suddenly this frog had 12 concerned adoptive parents, wondering if he’d make his way home. Luckily Steve reassured us there was a pond just the other side of the fence, so he was sure the froggie would be fine.

Tools and rubbish dropped off, and the warm fuzzy feeling at full ebb, we ran back to the handy 400m around block near The Range and Jump Street to do a timed mile. Whilst it had the disadvantage of running in circles, it had the advantage that you could drop out at 400m, 800m and 1200m and still have a time recorded. Plus, the track style run meant you could control your pacing better.

Laura helped me with the timekeeping, and the others set off on their speedy miles (times below).

Everyone felt great and thoroughly warm after the mile, and as we did our cool down, we learnt about our First Colchester Goodgym Mission, which takes place on Sunday 25th September. Get involved here.

Sign up to your first mission here You will need to complete mission training which takes 15 minutes, so best to get that done now.

Next week, we’ll be doing a Rivercare task, so sign up here

Run Report written by Angela Isherwood

Mile times

Toby - 6:40 Tom - 7:01 Aaron - 7:20 Tommy - 7:40 Ian - 8:05 David - 8:10 Catherine - 9:15 Naomi - 9:32 Michelle - 9:41