The intrepid GoodGym team braved the cold easterly wind to run Southsea Parkrun before heading down to the Lifeboat station to clean the beach. Big congrats to Mel who somehow smashed her PB in that headwind without even realising! Thanks to Jo for the action shots.

Laura ran to the beach clean and we met her in Eastney. We also met Rob Piggott of Believe & Achieve (organiser of the brilliant Santa runs, coastal marathon & half etc) who was down there with a big pile of shingle he's donated to renaturalise the beach area opposite the Lifeboat station. After the dogs had said hello (look at Mel getting a big kiss from Phoenix in the group photo!), Angela & Tracey set to work helping Rob spread the shingle and the rest of us headed onto the beach armed with litter pickers, gloves and bags.

There was a lot of rubbish to clear up. Obviously people like to pick up their drive through, drive to a beautiful spot to eat it and then sling it out of the window... No names mentioned but Ronald wouldn't be too impressed.

We found the usual takeaway debris, glass bottles, aging cans, bits of plastic, cigarette butts and lighters, rope, fishing hooks, plastic bottles as well as some pretty unhygienic things which we were glad to be picking up with a long picker. (Yuk!). A couple of unusual finds: a dustbin lid, knife (hopefully not a murder weapon), paint tray. Sadly no treasure so we'll have to rethink that retirement plan!

Afterwards we took our windswept and chilled selves to the Marina Bar for a hot drink and most of us opted for some well earned food too. The sun was streaming through the big windows and we soon warmed up, we just didn't want to go back out in the cold again.

Thanks for the great work today team - 5 big bags of rubbish collected!