Seven hardy souls ran 5km to help maintain the National Cycle Network

With snow falling in the afternoon, an outdoor task was always going to be challenging but seven runners headed along National Cycle Network Route 6 and cleared litter from a 500m section between Slater St and Abbey Park.

GoodGym has recently sought to develop a national partnership with Sustrans, the charity who maintain the National Cycle Network, some 16,575 miles of on and off-road cycle route spanning the UK. Some part of the NCN runs within 2 miles of 75% of the homes in the UK. We learned tonight that two major routes on the network have substantial off-road routes through the city of Leicester, route 6 (Watford to Keswick) and route 63 (Burton to Wisbech) and as luck would have it both routes run immediately past our regular meeting spot!

The group set off along route 6 for Slater St (with a short added loop around Rally Park) to get to work on a 500m section leading to Abbey Park that was in dire need of the famous GoodGym litter picking skills.

Almost as soon as we got to work a passing young man in a hoodie unexpectedly remarked "RESPECT!" with a sentence following in young person speak which I think loosely translated as "that's a marvellous thing you are all doing for your local community, you all have my full admiration."

As we reached Abbey Park our bags were full of an assortment of litter including evidence that some people seem to think the underpass crossing St Margaret's Way is a suitable location for a romantic liaison. Enough said.

En route back we stopped off at Rally Park oncemore for our fitness session. With our good-deeding tonight aiming to benefit local cyclists it was an activity based on the omnium cycling event for the groups as we looped around the park with a sprint section and an option to "take a lap" from the group that nobody was brave/warm enough to tackle this week.

Many thanks to Mel who ferried the litter pickers and extra layers for the group to the task site.

Next week we head to Saffron Lane Athletics Stadium to help with some gardening and they have kindly agreed to let us use their track for our fitness session afterwards! What a treat, get signed up now!

HD