David and Angela returned this week, a little chubbier and a little browner, but excited to meet up with their goodgym buddies and hear about their shenanigans from last week. We were also feeling so happy to have such a warm welcome from everyone with 15 goodgymers showing up to welcome us home.

We congratulated Emily on her fantastic London Marathon and wished luck to Chris for Halstead Marathon this weekend, as well as Ian, Hannah and Nicola for Alton Water 10km, and Fay and Tav who are doing their Leadership in Running Fitness Qualification this weekend. We also had a mutual group celebration for being finalists in the Essex Who Will Care Awards, which you can find out more about here.

Then we were on to our task. One of our faves, a bit of wombling for Rivercare. We did our warm up by the outdoor gym and then ran all the way to Eastgates to begin our litter pick. There seemed to be fewer hoops than usual, so we had to be extra efficient, but it seems our months of returning to this task are starting to have an effect because there is less and less each time.

So, we spent 30 minutes collecting litter and had a 2 part fitness session. Part one was to designate David as the hare. He carried the one bin bag (4 had been bundled into it) and set him off running back toward leisure world along the river path. He was the hare. We let him run until we couldn't see him any more because of the bend in the path, and then we were the harriers, aiming to catch him before he got back to the car park.

Only Tommy and James managed to catch him. Then we made our way over to the range for part two. And in explaining how to do this, I coined a new word, and because of my connections with Oxford I'm sure it will end up in the Oxford English Dictionary next year. Especially if we all start using it so it gets published lots!

The word:

Exallerate!

To do this fitness session we used the 4 sides of our block. Side 1 was a gentle run, side 2 was the acceleration (or exalleration - to excel at acceleration) leg; side 3 was top speed and side 4 was recovery. We each did this 3 times before heading back to base generally pleased with the good work we'd done both for the community and for our fitness.