Matt, the Run Director at Gunnersbury parkrun gave GoodGym a big shout out at the pre-run briefing as we had 6 volunteers around the course this morning. We also had 6 familiar faces running the course too.

Before the parkrun started, we celebrated Michelle's amazing achievement of 700 good deeds. She is often found running or cycling all over Hounslow and Ealing boroughs to do good, with special guest appearances in other parts of London too, She was given a "700" rosette, which led one parkrunner to ask if it was Michelle's birthday 😳

Back to the parkrun, Steph and Jon were marshalling, Michelle was handing out finish tokens and Kash, Harvey and Sevan were barcode scanning. While Harvey was running the course, Michelle, Kash and Sevan helped set up the funnel, then waited for the first finishers to appear.

The Run Director was very insistent that all of the barcode scanners need to stand in a line, facing in a specific direction and not, in any circumstance, turn to face the funnel. Matt said that he would guide the runners to us. Kash and Sevan stuck to the instructions, waiting to serve the finishers. Harvey, when he joined them, also automatically took his position in the line facing south 🧍‍♂️🧍‍♀️🧍‍♂️

First a dribble, then a flood, finishing with a long tail. In all, Michelle's fast fingers dished out 682 tokens which the barcode scanners needed to process. Most of the runners were pleased with their times or if not, at least happy that they'd managed to finish in the unexpectedly warm weather.

At the end of the task, the group headed to the café in the park to eat Michelle's 700th birthday cake and talk about Lithuanian courting traditions 💑