244 people ran 5km at Mile end parkrun and then 29 ran a little bit further to plant daffodil bulbs and clear graves of Ivy at the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park.

This was no normal parkrun. As 244 people gathered shortly before 9am at Mile End Park (a new PB for the course!) parkrun CEO Nick Pearson and GoodGym founder Ivo Gormley took centre stage. They were both there to announce an exciting partnership and get even more people across the UK running and doing good in their local community. parkrun and GoodGym are joining forces to reach 60,000 older people over the coming years and make a massive difference to the problem of social isolation and loneliness. They need your help so if you've always wanted to be paired but haven't got around to it yet now is the time to get involved

More runnng?

After crossing the finish line at parkrun some runners were hungry for more and so ran another 1km over to the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park. This historic cemetery was opened in 1841 and has been a public park since 1966. It is run entirely by the Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park and their volunteers.

2 tasks!?!

This park was huge with loads to do! Firstly we had 1,400 bulbs to plant: 1,000 daffodils and 400 snowdrops. It was very technical - daffodils 7cm below the earth, snowdrops only 3 cm. Both to be buried and compacted down. Oh, and remember to put them the right way up!

Then onto Ivy clearing. The pesky vines had completely engulfed part of the park and we needed to clear it. This was an immensely satisfying task, a great workout for the arms after all the punishment our legs had taken. Just take a look at the photos to see how much we cleared.

We got so much done, incredible work all round. This would have taken staff of the park absolutely ages to do. GoodGym did it in 35 minutes!