Birthday run

Last night was GoodGym Waltham Forest's first birthday, and we celebrated in style with a fantastic blend of long termers, long lost friends, recent recruits and one GG VIP! In no particular order welcome back to Joanna "Long Lost" Loxton, welcome to Manuela for the second time on two weeks and welcome to Beth Hoskins. It was Beth's first outing with GGWF but her 709th Good Deed with GoodGym - yes that's right folks, say it again, Seven Hundred and Nine!

Anyhoo, before I get into the events of last night here, is some brief news items:

This Saturday why not join Ruari "99 Parkruns and counting" Rhodes and me at Walthamstow Parkrun for a free timed 5k? Starts at 9 am and don't forget your GG t-shirt!

Good luck to Carmen and Ruby in this weekend's Brighton Marathon. Can't wait to hear all about it and I know you are both going to do GGWF proud.

Okay well, I am not going to go on too much here because in a moment we are going to ditch my halting prose and I will hand you over to the more elegant poetry of Kirsty Jones. Before that, I want to say a massive thank you to Pippa who worked hard last night to produce a cake that was stunning to look at and even more stunning to eat. It was everything a great cake should be perfectly moist, sweet, smooth and full of delightfully rich flavours. Thank you too to everyone who came to George Mason Lodge Last night and to everyone out there who has made it such a fantastic year for GGWF. You are all amazing people, and it is a privilege to know you all.

Okay enough from me. The following poem was written by regular runner Kirsty who read it to us last night in the pub over cakes and beer. What could be better than that? Over to you Kirsty.

Since our first head count, standing right here
Every Wednesday night we've run to do good
Spreading Good Gym spirit through our neighbourhood
We've shovelled at St Mary's to better the grounds
Created a rainbow fence and sandcastle mounds
We've plogged the banks of Lea Bridge road
Collecting bags of hubcaps, a heavy load
Spectated by locals, horses and dogs
While completing our tasks and during our jogs
We've painted and planted at The Mill
Built wooden planters ready to fill
One important job that we tried not to bodge
Was meticulous landscaping at George Mason Lodge
We cleaned toys, pulled weeds, painted a door,
Barrowed compost, picked litter and so so much more
Ant very busy taking photos all the while
"Guys can you quickly pose behind the rubbish and smile?"
But it's not all about the good deeds, not just about the run
We've also had laughs and barrow fulls of fun
We hosted our first social at Mirth Marvel and Maude
To the first year of many now let us applaud
Raise high your glasses and don't be modest
Give up three cheers for Good Gym Waltham Forest!

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The good news last night was that the clocks have finally changed meaning that we started our run in the daylight, the bad news was that is was freezing cold and wet! But that didn't bother the hardy crew from The Forest who relished a testing run to a new task. Before I get into that let's look at the day's other news.

We Are One

Next week is GoodGym Waltham Forest's (GGWF's) first birthday. We will be marking this occasion with a return to one of our favourite destinations, George Mason Lodge, for a spot of gardening. Other celebrations are planned, including cake and party paraphernalia, feel free contribute a cake! Sign-up here

Talking of birthday's

It's Camden birthday too and the monthly social is taking place there tonight (Thursday 4th April). Do pop along and represent the Waltham Forest massive if you can

Back to tonight

We were visiting a new destination tonight so along with the daylight afforded us by the recent clock change, everything felt a bit fresh and exciting. In fact more so with our biggest turnout since January and the fact that we welcomed new runners Manuela and Damaris to our group. I say new runners but I mean new GoodGymers, it was obvious in the first few strides that these pair are both well practised in the art of running. We also welcomed back Michael on a two-week GoodGym streak, surely a hat-trick beckons with our birthday run coming next week? Our numbers were further bolstered by the return of our globe-trotting regular and ultramarathon man, Ercole, piacere di vederti il mio vecchio amico.

Perhaps the light evening brought everyone out tonight, or perhaps it was the promise of cake generously donated by Mr. 50+ runs himself, Francis. Either way, it wasn't the weather that swelled our ranks! Colder than Hank Williams's heart and wetter that Marty Pellow's band, it was far from the balmy spring evening I was hoping for. Happily, it didn't seem to bother this intrepid crew who completed the testing 3.5 km run to our destination without breaking a sweat.

Our destination was the St. John The Baptist Church in Leytonstone. A splendid looking church in extensive grounds, it wouldn't look out of place in the Cotswolds so it certainly brightened up its urban setting. There to greet us with a warm welcome were Maureen and David who had prepared things very well for our visit with gloves, bags, litter pickers and tools aplenty. The crew wasted no time in getting stuck in and started removing, litter, weeds and brambles from the churchyard.

After making light work of the task and with fingers and toes beginning to turn a light shade of blue, we took refuge inside for a quick photocall and a pew (literally) before heading back to base to devour Francis's cake. For some reason, I seem to be acquiring a reputation as a cake glutton so I limited myself to just three slices on this occasion!

Well done everyone, it was a near biblical experience.

Sign up to the birthday run next week here

Oh and a quick PS. After a successful GGWF Parkrun meeting last Saturday. I will be returning to Walthamstow Parkrun on Saturday 13th April for another one. This is also the occasion of Ruari's 100th Parkrun so why not join us for a free timed 5k run? Details here

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