What a splendid time we had in Waltham Forest last night. After, a cunning bit of marketing, or should I say cakerting we had a great turnout with a hat-full of new runners. The cakerting idea was cooked-up (literally) by GGWF regular, Pippa, who inspired by recent birthday related kitchen exploits brought along a double orange cake. Yes double! Meaning that we could have our cake and eat it, although in the end we just ate it.

*Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the run report here is the news: *

For those who don't know it, GoodGym holds a monthly social, and the next one is tonight! Yes, that's right so cancel all plans and head to Islington from half six tonight! It will be a right laugh. Further deets and sign-up here

A warm welcome to first time GoodGymers Emily, Heather, Caroline, and Ruby. Thanks for coming, I'm sure it will be the first of many. Big thanks to Hannah and Pippa for leading the run and setting a super pace that kept all of us together nicely. Also, not that I was intimidated by all the fabulous #GirlPower on show, but well done to Fergus for being the only other bloke out last night. Of course well done to everyone else who came, you are all wonderful people.

So back to the night's excursions. While it was tempting to order a pint of ale and tuck into the Double Orange Cake straight away, we had work to do so after our rundown of what lay ahead we all whetted our appetites during the headcount with a discussion of tasty cakes.

With housekeeping done we headed a couple of KMs uphill (sorry I forgot to mention the hill!) to the spooky, secluded St Peter in the Forest Churchyard. After a brief wait for our taskmaster to let us into the tool shed the team set about moving moss, weeding weeds and cutting crabgrass (actually, I'm not sure about the last one but it helped my alliteration, and it is a plant)

With the churchyard practically restored to a second Eden, minus the apple tree, snake and naked people! We downed tools and headed into the deep, dark wood. Thankfully, we found our way out again without the Blair Witch disrupting our journey and under the safety of some streetlights, we undertook a series of sprints with various running drills on the returns.

These exercises are great for fitness and for injury prevention as they work on many of the muscles we use for running but in a more flexible and concentrated way.

Suitably exhausted, the crew headed back to Mirth, Marvel and Maud when those who wanted to indulge in cake and refreshments did so, including me. With a double cake, I thought it would be rude not to eat two slices - does that mean I had four slices?

Next week we are heading toward Walthamstow Marshes for a bit of litter picking along the Lea Bridge Road cycle and footpath. Don't delay, sign-up today.

Appropriately, we will be heading back to St Peter's Church for our Halloween Run at the end of the month. Any ideas to pimp this even up would be gratefully received, but we were thinking along the lines of Zombies! Sign-up here

Finally, do join our WhatsApp group. I will send out the link in an email with this report.

That's all folks ☮️