Tonight’s task took us to a new venue only days old in the centre of town, the Swindon Hub. The excitement of an indoor task somewhere new, generated lots of last minute sign ups. It was a fab turnout, really exciting to hear lots of chitter chatter, and Tracey’s books banging together behind me as we ran through Swindon Town.

The Swindon Hub is a large multi use community space with a cafe, book share, a market selling local products and art gallery showcasing local artists. Tonight, we helped tidy and clean after a busy day. We swept and hoovered the floor, wiped the tables, tidied the displays and cleaned all of the children’s play area - and maybe played with a few of the toys too!

Throughout lockdown the running community of Swindon run a 5k route of our own choosing at our own time between 18:00 Friday to 18:00 Sunday. We record our efforts and submit them for entry onto the leader board. It's like a real Park Run but different 🏃‍♂️ 🏃‍♀️.

13 runners signed up for pacer, tail walking and marshalling duties for the GoodGym takeover of this weekends VPR. Week 58 no less, and we continue to support each other and the Swindon Community runners.

As always I'd like to thank GoodGym Swindon volunteers in supporting me as RD it's never possible without you guys.

Special thanks go to Stuart Kingsley who paced both 22 and 25 minutes, there's just no stopping him 😉 and congratulations to Hannah Garraway who took on the 40 minute pacer along with new entry baby Rueben 👶 and just happened to ring the PB bell 🔔. Brilliant work guys.

As far as I’m told there ‘should’ be just one more GoodGym takeover if all goes to plan and we have other GoodGym RDs lined up to lead so on that note it's adios from me as RD👋

Have you got wanderlust after a year of lockdown? After virtually exploring Swindon in our February fitness monopoly challenge, it was time to head further afield in March. With international travel banned, what better time to explore the length of the country and take on a virtual Land's End to John O'Groats (LEJOG) challenge?

After some frantic WhatsApping and spreadsheet making, we got ourselves organised - 1084 miles of running or walking in 31 days.

Could we do it? Well, after clocking up an impressive 66 miles on Day 1, not only did we know we could do LEJOG, the challenge was on for JOGLE too 💪

With a quick wave to our friends at GoodGym Bristol, we were soon on our way to the East Midlands (fuelled by Sam and her recommendation of Bird's pork pies) and on to Leeds. By day 8, we could proclaim we'd walked (and run) 500 miles. Although the storms hit as we ran along the North East coast, we ploughed on to cross the border.

We hit JOG on 17 March - but no hanging around as JOGLE was on. As we headed south, Spring had sprung and we spotted daffodils and postboxes wearing Easter bonnets.

Always with a close eye on the data, on 21 March we projected that we'd make it to Land's End on 31 March. Time to up the ante again... could we get to Land's End and then back to Swindon by the end of the month?

After a quick pit stop in Lands End for a Cornish cream tea on 28 March, we started heading back to Swindon. 202 miles to cover in 3 days...the challenge was on!

The final day quickly came around...77 miles to home. And we were averaging 77 miles a day - it all seemed too good to be true.

Did we make it home? For a while, I wasn't sure we would. Tracey kindly offered to step in and carry out an emergency walk to the shops for essential snacks. But she was spared from this mission as the totaliser suddenly sprang to life and suddenly that was it, home sweet home! 🏡

Teamwork makes the dreamwork. Together we covered an impressive 2409 miles in a month. And that's just the human miles - our canine friends did their bit too 🐶

Thank you to everyone who took part and supported and motivated everyone to keep marching on. Special thanks to captains Gabrielle, Gina, and Cath who kept us on track. And to Pauline for joining us on our tour.

But not just yet. The government roadmap to bring the UK out of Covid Jail has been announced so there is light at the end of this very long tunnel..... YAY!! It's been a whole year since the UK went into the first lockdown but that didn't deter the good people of Swindon from missing out on our beloved Park Runs and VPR came into fruition. 9 runners / walkers covered pacing duties, tail walkers and marshalling and I was RD for the weekend. I couldn't have done this without the support of my fantastic GoodGym Swindon support team, well done guys! Our thoughts were with Tariq Hussain, a Swindon runner, and his family. Sadly, Tariq was struck by a vehicle whilst out running recently and he lost his battle for his life - RIP dear man. We are very lucky here to have a magnificent support group in Swindon Community Running always full of kindness and sound advice, it really is quite amazing.