Whilst the rest of Oxford was pressing snooze on the alarm clock for the 47th time or tucking into their Sunday breakfast, 4 intrepid GoodGym Winter Warriors (Bethan, Julia, Ben & Trev) made the blustery, but sunny, journey to Florence Park to help at the inaugural Florence Park Junior Parkrun.

Bolstered by promises of baked goods we donned our highviz and shouldered our CAUTION RUNNERS signs and took up our marshal spots, allocated to us by Run Director Amy.

The 2KM route of this new Parkrun is made up of two loops of the park and a final dash down a traditional Parkrun finish funnel. All of the kids did really well, cheered on by the marshals, dog walkers and Father Christmas alike. Trev fully entered into the GoodGym spirit by ensuring the Santa suit which he wore for Saturdays Frosty 5K was not another single use item, and gave out high 5s a plenty! Once all the runners had completed the route all the marshals re-grouped for a photo and chocolate brownies (where there is Bethan there is homemade cake…………..).

This was such a well organised and joyful event. We should all get back in touch with our inner child, running in dinosaur print wellies, with a football at our feet and demanding that our big brothers DO NOT WIN. If you ever need to smile and feel that all is right with the world, go and volunteer at a Junior Parkrun! (Seriously, they welcome marshals all the time, if you fancy it email the run director: florencepark-juniors@parkrun.com).