We kick started the night with a bit of ‘we’re not worthy’ bowing to Mark, our jitter-bugging, disco-jiving, pocket-rocket training guru, following his amazing London Marathon achievement. (It would have been show and tell but he didn’t bring the medal…pfft.) Suffice to say we were all impressed by the 3 hour 38 minute race time. Clearly this is why the majority of us lose sight of him within the first three minutes of our Monday night runs.

Then it was out to the square for a warm-up that was perhaps a little more gentle and a little less dynamic than normal, thanks to Mark’s ‘I just ran 26 miles and I’m in recovery’ muscles. Although fatigue didn’t stop him squeezing in a quick round of the hokey-cokey. Then Mark got on his bike (literally) and our crew of seven set off for a flat, fast run to Thomson House School in Mortlake.

Thomson House is an outstanding free school for primary aged children and it’s the Richmond GoodGym team’s second visit to help out caretaker, Jeremy. We were back this time to put the playground in order, sweeping and tidying and generally enjoying an excuse to make use of the climbing frames when we thought no one was watching.

Our return to base at Wholefoods was rewarded with some yummy chocolates (who needs a medal??) and a round-up of runs we could sign up for. Whilst the Turk’s Head 10k is now sold out, there’s still time to sign up for the Richmond Running Festival which offers 5k, 10k and half-marathon distances and includes a run within the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, a world heritage site no less! Jane has already posted details on the GoodGym website, so sign up, sign up…

This evening we welcomed Ellen for her first run with GoodGym and Fatima returned sporting her red GoodGym t-shirt on only her second run with the team – nice work!

Happy running