4 of us got together to support each other as well as supporting Barking Park Run. It was a beautiful, fresh morning. Not our usual parkrun, Barking was very welcoming -even with a tongue in cheek "get back to your own park runs"- yelled out during a little congestion at the start 😂. Julia and Linda ran while Ed and Sharon cheered everyone on. Dog sitting for a friend Sharon brought two little dogs with her -well it is Barking parkrun after all- and Julia brought hot tea and Colin cup cakes to warm and cheer us on with the rest of our Christmas day.

Ed and Linda arrived nice and early at Frenford Foodbank which gave us time to make sure everything was ultra organised before the Frenford volunteers showed up. We like to think that our pre-session efforts contributed to the smooth running and early finish of the session 😊

Another Saturday, another parkrun at Valentines

Once again the weather did cooperate, the rain lashing the country overnight subsided and a crisp clear December morning made for good running weather.

Ed did his usual at the car park entrance. Linda walked a lap with R and then chased down the Tail Walker - she made it look easy! And I ended up on my first experience of the app to do timings

Side note - Julia chased down James, who managed to just stay ahead. #96 done for her, still on track to hit 100 before end of year

it didn't quite snow, but it was indeed cold, windy and damp, so a warm coat was a sensible choice for the marshalls!

Luckily the rain slowed down in time for the start of parkrun.

As with the title reference, sofar not found any circumstances that stops Ed from effortlessly balancing the cheering & cajoling with oontrolling the traffic flow in & out of the car park.

Although it seems tea might be a soft spot when the weather is like this....

P.S. give Julia a cheer when you see her next - she set herself the challenge of parkrun every week till the end of the year to reach 100 before 2026, not an easy thing with this weather

Three of us arrived at Frenford Food bank to find 50 food orders to be packed. Luckily we had four lovely friends of Frenford to help too. As usual both teams gelled really well, working together and helping one another out or facilitating rest and refuel breaks. Just as we thought we had finished another two were added so in the end 52 packages were picked and packed.

Linda and Ed had already been there twice this week prepping for today and must have done a good job of organising things as we seemed to finish really quickly and a shout out goes to Peter for using his valuable annual leave to give the task his invaluable help.

The day started with one dropped out (due to another engagement), two missing it (they overslept) and another (who wasn't even signed up) explaining why they couldn't make it.🤷‍♀️ Two of us marshaled and one ran at Valentines Park Run. Post Park Run we three GGR PR regulars, all from Hainault, decided to switch the social venue to our local...which turned out not to be open🤦‍♀️. In the end we had a mini social breakfast in a nice little local cafe 😋. We are adaptable and dont give up easy in GGR 😁

4 Good Gymmers and 4 friends of Frenford joined forces to provide 49 local families with extra food supplies this week.

A massive welcome to our newest GGR member and Foodbank Helper Nav. It was Nav's first mission and with very little training she was picking and packing like an old hand.

Linda was having a clumsy day and had to jump out of the way of low flying tins of tomatoes and Peter nearly got hit by a Milk carton that shot through a bag which didn't have a bottom in it 😬 Maybe a need for GG toe protector image wear 😂 Ed as always kept calm and carried on throughout.

The rest of the session went very smoothly and we even had time for a little tidy up before making our weary way home.